Eco Insights
Introduction
The planet faces 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. In addition, consumers lack reliable and transparent information about the sustainability of food products, limiting their ability to make informed choices and ask producers and policymakers for change.
What is Eco Insights?
Eco Insights is a research project that aims to promote 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 assessing the quality of data. Citizen science can empower citizens to participate in the co-creation of knowledge and solutions to societal challenges, such as a sustainable food system.
Who is Eco Insights?
Eco Insights is an internal project of CenSE and the team consists of 5 members from Odisee, KUL and external organizations. The project is currently looking for external funding and partners to fulfill its ambition.
Output of this project
Eco Insights' ambition was to create a platform for consumers and producers to monitor and compare food sustainability scores based on a comprehensive and flexible data system. This system tracks the environmental, social and economic impact of food products from primary production to consumption (from farm to fork), using data from multiple sources and applying a rigorous and transparent methodology. The platform also enables citizens to contribute to the data collection and assessment process, using collective intelligence and artificial intelligence tools.
By providing citizens with credible and easy-to-understand information about the sustainability of food products, Eco Insights aims to influence their behavior toward healthy and sustainable food consumption.
