Eco Insights

Introduction

The planet is facing a crisis of environmental degradation, climate change, and food insecurity. The current food system is not sustainable, as it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, soil erosion, and health problems. Moreover, consumers lack reliable and transparent information on the sustainability of food products, which hinders their ability to make informed choices and demand change from producers and policy makers.

What is Eco Insights?

Eco Insights is a research project that aims to foster the transition to a sustainable food system by using citizen science as a driver. Citizen science is an approach that involves citizens in scientific research, such as making observations, measuring, collecting data, or rating data quality. Citizen science can empower citizens to participate in the co-creation of knowledge and solutions for societal challenges, such a sustainable food system.

Future output and outcome

Eco Insights' ambition is to create a platform that enables consumers and producers to check and compare the sustainability scores of food products based on a comprehensive and flexible data system. This system traces the environmental, social, and economic impacts of food products from primary production to consumption (aka from farm to fork), using data from various sources and applying a rigorous and transparent methodology. The platform also allows citizens to contribute to the data collection and rating process, using collective intelligence and artificial intelligence tools.

By providing citizens with credible and easy-to-understand information on the sustainability of food products, Eco Insights aims to influence their behavior towards healthy and sustainable food consumption.

Who is Eco Insights?

Eco Insights is an internal project of CenSE and its team consists of 5 members from Odisee, KUL and external organisations. The project is currently looking for external funding and partners to achieve its ambition.