| NSF Org: |
RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | September 18, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 15, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1832233 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Maria Uhle
muhle@nsf.gov (703)292-2250 RISE Integrative and Collaborative Education and Research (ICER) GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | September 15, 2018 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $61,900.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $61,900.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2020 = $28,450.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
31 E 5TH ST TEMPE AZ US 85281-3601 (480)350-8867 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
31 5th Street Tempe AZ US 85281-3601 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION ACT, Intl Global Change Res & Coord |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Many cities across the globe are facing difficult challenges managing their food, water and energy systems. The challenges stem from the fact that the issues of food, water and energy are often tightly connected with each other, not only locally but also globally. This is known as the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus. An effective solution to a local water problem may cause new local problems with food or energy, or cause new water problems at the global level. On a local scale, it is difficult to anticipate whether solutions to one issue in the nexus are sustainable across food, water and energy systems, both at the local and the global scale. Innovative solutions that encompass the nexus are particularly important to enable cities to better manage their food, water and energy systems and understand the benefits and tradeoffs for different solutions.
This award supports U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 29-country initiative through the joint Belmont Forum- Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe. The Sustainable Urbanization Global Initiative (SUGI)/Food-Water-Energy Nexus is a multilateral initiative designed to support research projects that bring together the fragmented research and expertise across the globe to find innovative solutions to the Food-Water-Energy Nexus challenge. The call seeks to develop more resilient, applied urban solutions to benefit a much wider range of stakeholders. The rapid urbanization of the world's population underscores the importance of this focus. International partners were invited to develop solutions for this challenge. The funds requested will be used to support U.S. participants to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., civil society, NGOs, and industry). Participants from other countries are funded through their national funding organizations.
This project seeks to develop a novel approach to produce innovative solutions to FWE challenges that are both locally and globally sustainable, through experiments in Urban Living Labs in Austria, Brazil, Germany Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and the USA. Urban Living Labs are a forum for innovation, applied to the development of new products, systems, services and processes, employing working methods to integrate people into the entire development process as users and co-creator, to explore, examine, experiment, test and evaluate new ideas, scenarios, processes, systems, concepts and creative solutions in complex and real contexts. The project will involve a range of urban stakeholders early in the creative and evaluative processes of innovation, and the solutions produced will be tested for environmental soundness and economic viability and social acceptability and robustness.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The project has had both intellectual and broader outcomes that contribute to the advancement of the local sustainable food economy in the Greater Phoenix area of Arizona through participation in the formation and running of an urban living lab. Urban living labs (ULL) are collaborations between public, private, civil, and higher education sectors who work together towards sustainable transformation of an urban area. The Phoenix area ULL was a partnership between staff from the neighboring cities of Phoenix and Tempe, researchers and students from the Sustainable Food Economies Lab at Arizona State University, and Local First Arizona (LFAZ), a non-profit supporting small businesses in Arizona. The goal was to accelerate the local transformation to a sustainable food economy through the selection, design, and implementation of strategic pilot projects.
The pilot projects aimed to enhance the necessary support and conditions to inspire, stimulate, and enable businesses and other stakeholders to take more direct action, such as adopt sustainable business practices, start sustainable businesses, or provide services to support sustainable businesses. While four primary pilot projects were conducted by the ULL, we primarily focused on one project: promoting indigenous food in Arizona.
Intellectual outcomes were an indirect outcome of our participation in the ULL. Participation enabled the Arizona State University partner to observe a ULL at first hand and to gain knowledge and understanding of how ULLs work, and especially how they can achieve more sustainable results around food, water, and energy. Our primary focus in the project, however, was in achieving broader outcomes.
The broader outcomes of the project are upstream ‘interventions’ rather than actual, concrete changes to the sustainable food economy, such as business startups, jobs created, money kept in the local economy, food miles, or local consumption of healthy, local produce. The upstream interventions aim to influence the factors that enable or support such direct changes to occur, and include capacities (knowledge and skills), resources, rules and regulations, political support, public opinion, and so forth. The interventions not only affect business owners and workers, but entrepreneurs, community groups, business development providers, elected officials, the general public and other stakeholders. The broader outcomes are described below.
As a partner in the Phoenix area ULL, the project has developed the capacity of two City of Tempe staff and of other partner organizations to organize, coordinate and collaborate in such a coalition towards a common goal, to select and develop strategic interventions (“experiments”) with local stakeholders, and to transfer and scale the results of these pilot projects for broader impact. The capacities built within the partnering organizations and individuals within them will enhance their ability to lead and participate in similar future ULLs beyond the GLOCULL project. The project has also developed capacities of these participants specific to developing the sustainable food economy in Arizona such as furthering understanding of the structure of the food economy, the breadth of enterprise types that should be part of it, what makes it sustainable, the interconnections between food, water, and energy, and promoting diversity and inclusion.
The primary pilot project City of Tempe conducted was to highlight the work of Indigenous food entrepreneurs across Arizona through the publication and promotion of a “Yearbook”. The Indigenous perspective is a fundamental component of the broader sustainable food economy in Arizona for its issues of land and water rights, economic exploitation and suppression, health, culture, relations to the land and nature, and farming methods. Outcomes have been: raised public awareness of and support for Indigenous food and culture; added momentum of the Indigenous food movement in Arizona; enhanced interest in and motivation to emulate food entrepreneurship among Indigenous populations in Arizona through inspiring stories of what is possible; and increased recognition of Indigenous agriculture as a source of learning for sustainable methods among non-Indigenous farmers in Arizona.
The city also worked on a secondary pilot project to promote the use of sustainable packaging by downtown Tempe restaurant and cafes. Although take-up and direct impact has been very low, the project has had positive outcomes of: continued efforts on the campaign by The Downtown Tempe Community (DTC) nonprofit and a DTC staff member is now leading a project for sustainable packaging with the nationwide downtown association.
This projects are leading to increased investment by the City of Tempe in local food programs, partnerships with local tribes and additional pilot projects with local businesses. For more information about our climate action work go to www.tempe.gov/climateaction
Last Modified: 03/24/2022
Modified by: Braden R Kay
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