Social enterprise as a catalyst for sustainable and healthy local food systems

社会企业是可持续和健康的当地粮食系统的催化剂

• 批准号: BB/W017997/1
• 负责人: Fergus Lyon
• 金额: $ 42.24万
• 依托单位: Middlesex University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FW017997%2F1
• 关键词: Social; enterprise; catalyst; sustainable; healthy

The scale of change needed to transform UK food systems for health, social justice and environment requires new ideas, organisational models and collaborative approaches that can meaningfully engage individuals and communities. Existing top-down approaches to the challenge of sustainable food provision and diet have failed to tackle the crisis of poor dietary health and sustainable food production. Our proposed research will focus on the distinctive role of social enterprises as an integral part of a more diverse system, exploring and enhancing their unique contribution to food systems that are more inclusive, sustainable and healthy. Social enterprise are organisations that are trading with a core social and environmental purpose, and make up 9% of the business population. Initial work by the project team and partners reveals how social enterprises and their community engagement around food and wellbeing can occur through a variety of activities, including community growing spaces and distribution schemes, leisure and fitness centres, children's nurseries and other community-based services. The proposed research will examine the extent to which such 'bottom up' approaches that build on local understandings, networks and capabilities have further unrealised potential to engage diverse communities and other organisational actors (private, public and civil society), and thus catalyse the expansion of sustainable and healthy local food systems across the UK. To this end, our transdisciplinary team, led by researchers who are part of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, brings together expertise from the natural, social and policy sciences, with specialisms in social enterprise, sustainable consumption, nutrition and environmental life cycle assessment. This team will work with six partner social enterprises in England, Scotland and Wales and six support/policy organisations all of whom contribute to the research design at all stages. This will ensure the potential for transformational impact on policy and practice is maximised. The research will include the following main elements:-Analysis of the range and types of social enterprise involved in developing local food systems and connecting people to growing spaces and other green areas.-Examination of the scientifically measurable outcomes of the interventions on the supply chain, environment and nutrition, and identification of good practice in measuring such impacts.-Case studies of social enterprises focused on food and community wellbeing to examine how they engage their communities, their ownership/governance structures, partnerships and innovative practices, the challenges they face and their support needs. -Exploration of the different understandings of sustainable food and diets within diverse communities.-Mapping the wider food network, key stakeholders and supportive ecosystem in each case study locality. -Exploring how transformational change can come about from scaling up social enterprise activity and policy change.Central to the project is the active participation of our social enterprise partners, their staff and community members, with particular attention to developing their research skills and capacity, as well as those of the academic researchers to enable participatory research. The research findings will be used to co-design resources and toolkits to support the scaling-up or replication of successful models and innovations and the sharing of good practice across the country. This is not without its challenges and the project will examine the various barriers and constraining factors and how they can best be addressed. In addition to good practice guides for social enterprises and other organisations across the country, policy briefings will be prepared, focusing on the different levels of local, regional and national policy making.

为了健康、社会公正和环境，改变英国食品系统所需的变革规模需要新的想法、组织模式和协作方法，这些方法可以有意义地吸引个人和社区。现有的自上而下应对可持续粮食供应和饮食挑战的办法未能解决饮食健康不良和可持续粮食生产的危机。我们建议的研究将侧重于社会企业作为一个更多样化的系统的组成部分的独特作用，探索和加强他们对更包容、可持续和健康的粮食系统的独特贡献。社会企业是指以社会和环境为核心目的进行贸易的组织，占商业人口的9%。项目团队和合作伙伴的初步工作揭示了社会企业及其社区如何通过各种活动参与食品和福利，包括社区种植空间和分配方案，休闲和健身中心，儿童托儿所和其他社区服务。拟议的研究将检查这种基于当地理解、网络和能力的“自下而上”方法在多大程度上具有进一步未实现的潜力，可以让不同的社区和其他组织参与者（私人、公共和民间社会）参与进来，从而促进英国各地可持续和健康的当地食品系统的扩展。为此，我们的跨学科团队由可持续繁荣理解中心的研究人员领导，汇集了来自自然科学，社会科学和政策科学的专业知识，以及社会企业，可持续消费，营养和环境生命周期评估的专业知识。该团队将与英格兰、苏格兰和威尔士的六家合作伙伴社会企业以及六家支持/政策组织合作，他们都将在研究设计的各个阶段做出贡献。这将确保最大限度地发挥对政策和实践产生变革性影响的潜力。研究将包括以下主要内容：-分析参与发展当地粮食系统并将人们与种植空间和其他绿地联系起来的社会企业的范围和类型。-审查在供应链、环境和营养方面的干预措施的科学可衡量的结果，并确定衡量这些影响的良好做法。-以食品和社区福利为重点的社会企业案例研究，研究他们如何参与社区、所有权/治理结构、伙伴关系和创新实践、他们面临的挑战以及他们的支持需求。-探索不同社区对可持续食物和饮食的不同理解。-在每个案例研究地点绘制更广泛的食物网络、主要利益相关者和支持性生态系统。-探讨如何透过扩大社会企业活动及政策改变，带来转型变革。这个计划的核心是我们的社会企业伙伴、他们的员工和社区成员的积极参与，特别注意发展他们的研究技能和能力，以及学术研究人员的研究技能和能力，使参与研究成为可能。研究成果将用于共同设计资源和工具包，以支持扩大或复制成功的模式和创新，并在全国范围内分享良好做法。这并非没有挑战，该项目将审查各种障碍和制约因素，以及如何最好地解决它们。除了为全国的社会企业和其他组织提供良好的实践指南外，还将编写政策简报，重点关注地方、区域和国家不同层面的政策制定。