NOW - No more Organic Waste by Edizioni Ambiente

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GaŃ&#x2018;lle Ridolfi and Alessandra Vaccari

NOW No more Organic Waste

FREEBOOK AMBIENTE Biblioteca gratuita on line di

GaŃ&#x2018;lle Ridolfi and Alessandra Vaccari

NOW No more Organic Waste

Gaёlle Ridolfi and Alessandra Vaccari NOW No more Organic Waste Supported by the EU LIFE + programme

Edizioni Ambiente Srl www.edizioniambiente.it NOW project coordinator: Anna Brescianini Authors: Gaёlle RIDOLFI and Alessandra VACCARI, Indica srl Publication coordinator: Carlo Pesso, Centro Studi Edizioni Ambiente Editor: Diego Tavazzi Design and layout: Roberto Gurdo

© 2014, Edizioni Ambiente via Natale Battaglia 10, 20127 Milano tel. +39 02.45487277, fax +39 02.45487333 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any medium without express written permission of the Publisher. ISBN: 978-88-6627-154-3 Edizioni Ambiente’s website: www.edizioniambiente.it www.reteambiente.it www.rivistarifiuti.reteambiente.it www.renewablematter.eu www.nextville.it www.freebook.edizioniambiente.it www.puntosostenibile.it Follow us on: Facebook.com/EdizioniAmbiente Twitter.com/EdAmbiente Twitter.com/ReteAmbiente

Table of Contents Foreword

1. Reasons for initiating NOW

2. The origins of a model

3. Managing food waste

4. Valuating and transferring the model

5. Concluding remarks

Appendixes

Notes

biographies

Foreword Anyone can through his labour come to own as much as he can use in a beneficial way before it spoils; anything beyond this is more than his share and belongs to others. (J. Locke, Second Treatise of Government). Over the last three years CAUTO, a non-profit social cooperative based in Brescia (Italy), conducted the NOW – No More Organic Waste project. The project enjoyed the support of the LIFE + Programme of the European Commission. The very name of CAUTO (which means: careful in Italian) underscores the intention expressed by its founding members when they created the cooperative in 1995. That said, CAUTO is also an acronym for Cantiere autolimitazione Onlus meaning: non-profit organization that builds self-restraint. Being careful is a form of attention that results in action: CAUTO promotes human dignity and the integration of citizens in the community through waste reduction and environmental protection. What began in 1995, widely anticipated the approach adopted today at the European level through the Communication “Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe” issued on July 2, 2014 by the European Commission to spearhead the development and testing of a new waste management model. The NOW project recovers unsold food products from supermarkets. These products maintain their health and nutritional characteristics and are donated and reused as food resources. The results of the NOW project are very significant: from November 2011 to October 2014, the project enabled the recovery of 2,000 tons of food worth € 2,250,000. While involving 70 organizations and 60 volunteers, it created 15 jobs and helped provide regular meals every week to 5,000 people in poverty. The NOW model is even more appealing than its numbers show. Unlike charitable organisations, it is able to mobilize employees, salaried and volunteer, and all the hardware necessary to collect the goods 5

and maintain food quality. This is why the project established itself as both unique and reliable. Furthermore, it allows retailers to capture a number of benefits, including the reduction of transaction costs: each retailer deals with a unique recovery centre rather than with countless associations. This first strong point determines a second one, which is even more important considering the social implications of the project. The NOW project serves as a platform, that takes the shape of a Food Dispensary, for the redistribution of food to local charitable organizations. By doing so NOW optimizes the distribution of discarded food. Typically, food collected from a single distribution outlet charts an irregular flow; the ability to draw from a variety of sources and convey them towards a single sorting place implies that a greater variety of food is available at any time. Therefore, the various associations that depend on the Dispensary to compose meals for their patrons, access a greater mix of foods that best fits these needs. The variety of sources ensures greater regularity, predictability and variability of the meals served, so ensuring better nutrition of the people already in trouble. Furthermore, the associations referring to the Food Dispensary no longer need to retrieve food items from various stores thus avoiding considerable transport costs and environmental impacts. In fact, the Food Dispensary is a smart platform, i.e. one based on the traceability of food collected to optimise distribution. This allows to monitor flows and to document significant environmental benefits (reduction of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 3,137 tons of CO2). The present report documents the many benefits gained through the implementation of project NOW. Based on a comparative critical appreciation of the factors that emerged gradually, it includes an assessment of the elements useful to replicate the model in other contexts. It is consistent with the purpose of systematizing the results of the project, aimed at highlighting the positive effects on the prevention and reduction of food wastes, and points at related environmental, economic and social benefits. Finally, it concludes with a series of recommendations aimed at improving the rules and, more generally, 6

the framework that may support the successful diffusion of such projects in Italy and in Europe. The CAUTO cooperative and Edizioni Ambiente’s Study Centre (who coordinated this publication, available for free-of-charge download at freebookambiente.it) wish to thank Alessandra Vaccari and Gaëlle Ridolfi of Indica Srl, whose patient work established the model, defined the indicators and macro-indicators, and conducted the analysis of this innovative programme. Carlo Pesso For Edizioni Ambiente’s Study Centre October 2014

1. Reasons for initiating NOW NOW is a small project with big ambitions. This not out of lack of modesty of its protagonists but, rather, because of the nature of the challenges the project tackled. These are great, as proven by the fact that these fuel the debate over sustainability at European, national and regional levels. Therefore, it is necessary to describe both the project’s raison d’être and what is happening in the wider context before examining the project in detail. Even more so, since it is this context and these reasons that have led to its launch on the wider European stage – in the shape of the LIFE + – NOW “No more organic waste” project – and to the implementation this pilot experience. 1.1. Making the circular economy

The European Commission’s communication Towards a circular economy: zero waste programme for Europe (COM (2014) 398 final of July 2, 2014 is both the culmination of a process that began in the 80s of the last century, and an indication to achieve the objectives adopted in the Europe 2020 Strategy. Let us briefly examine the main stages of this process. During the 70s and 80s, a series of scandals related to wastes strongly alerted citizens and policy makers over the impacts their mismanagement could cause on the environment and human health. To address these concerns, the EU designed and launched a number of policies that have had a profound cultural impact. For instance, the adoption of waste collection systems, begun in the 80s with the directives on packaging waste, has helped to spread and re-instil the concepts of prevention, reuse, recycling and recovery. These notions gradually extended to other material streams (oils, batteries, electrical and electronic equipment, etc.). Eventually, the sixth action programme on the environment adopted in 2002, gave much attention to the recovery of biodegradable materials. Today, while Europe undergoes the greatest economic crisis since 1929, setting as ambitious a goal 8

as reaching for a zero waste Europe will deeply affect other policies. Undoubtedly, it will make a decisive contribution to the review of the economic policy objectives expressed by the Europe 2020 Strategy (see: Budget of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and is currently underway. tutions – national and European – have gained awareness of the serious economic and environmental discrepancies caused by the unmanaged use of the non-renewable resources. The progressive expansion of innovative approaches achieved through the systematic search for novel organizational, technological and economic solutions has created a range of increasingly varied material collection, recycling and recovery systems. As a result, new employment opportunities have iour of governments, companies and individuals. As a consequence the Union’s 2020 action programme on the environment “Living well within the limits of our planet” (Decision 1386/2013) takes an even more daring step by recognising a “limit” to the availability of resources and stating that any new perspective for economic development should be based on the notion of quality. From this point onwards, the development of a “smart, sustainable knowledge-based forms of production, distribution and consumption. Achieving a circular economy means changing the paths of value creation: from product design to the renewal of markets and business models, from processing waste methods to modes of consumption. Not only does such a leap forward imply a major technological boost, but also, more importantly, it points at a renewal of organizations, soThe principal objective is to initiate a transition towards a circular economy. In a circular economy, products maintain their value as long as possible and there are no wastes. At the end of a product’s life cycle, the economic system retains the materials that make-up the prod9

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NOW – No more Organic Waste is a project conducted by the social cooperative CAUTO of Brescia over three years and with the support of the LIFE + Programme of the European Commission. The model developed by NOW collects food items donated by supermarket chains to convey them to the associations that make and distribute meals to people in need. The Food Dispensary acts as a platform that guarantees the quality, traceability and variability of distributed food. By doing so, it avoids discarding precious nutrients, which would otherwise end in the municipal waste stream, thus generating considerable environmental benefits. By creating new employment opportunities it also participates to the advent of an inclusive circular economy. In many ways, it is an innovative experience that anticipates the implementation of the objectives recently expressed by the European Commission in its Communication: “Towards a circular economy: a zero waste programme for Europe” issued on July 2, 2014. We owe to Alessandra Vaccari and Gaëlle Ridolfi of Indica Srl – among the major Italian experts on the subject – the modeling, the definition of indicators and macro-indicators, and the analysis of the model.

ISBN 978-88-6627-154-3

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