The thematic area of Sustainable Food Systems embraces the whole food value chain: from food production to consumption, from organic waste collection to treatment, in a circular perspective. Our food systems are currently inefficient. Agriculture has a tremendous impact on the environment as it affects the quality of our soils, air, and waters, while large amounts of food still go wasted from primary production (food losses) to food processing, from the HORECA sector to the end-consumer. From a waste management perspective, municipalities might as well encounter difficulties to implement separate collection systems for organic waste and valorise it. Looking at business innovations of the bioeconomy, the unavoidable share of food waste represents a significant yet untapped potential to produce alternative fertilisers and organic soil conditioner that can contribute to reduce the dependency on synthetic and imported fertilisers for food production. The whole food system functioning needs therefore to be reassessed within this circularity perspective to be able to support a systemic change in the production, consumption, distribution and treatment of food products. At the same time, food is not produced without healthy soils and clean freshwater. The sustainability of these resources is also addressed within the theme.

In our effort to promote sustainable management practices, ACR+ aims to support its members in better understanding the characteristic of their food systems, creating and extracting value from it, while working towards more climate resilient systems. We focus on urban and rural contexts, and on the linkages between the two. We aim to help the local authorities in our network to strengthen their capacity of managing resources and implementing activities, through the exchange of learnings and experiences from other territories, and through the interaction with the wealth of organizations that are part of our network