Abstract
The global food system faces urgent sustainability challenges, including resource depletion, biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution impacts. Addressing these requires a transformative approach to redesign the agri-food chain. This project, STREAM, proposes a high-resolution, EU-scale model integrating production, consumption, and waste management. STREAM's multilayered framework captures nutritional, chemical, and elemental properties while incorporating spatial granularity to evaluate innovative technologies and policy interventions effectively. The project adopts a multidisciplinary methodology across four work packages. WP1 consolidates spatial data on nutrient flows and infrastructure, enabling a detailed EU-wide substance flow analysis. WP2 develops an economic optimization model using multi-integer linear programming to identify cost-effective pathways for technology adoption and nutrient recovery. WP3 incorporates an environmental layer to assess emissions, nutrient losses, and ecosystem degradation, linking decisions with spatially specific environmental constraints. WP4 explores scenarios such as dietary shifts, innovative processing strategies, and policy tools like true pricing and emission ceilings. STREAM delivers actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, and researchers, promoting circularity, sustainability, and resilience in the agri-food sector, aligning with EU Green Deal objectives.
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