PurposeThere are several LCA methods in existence today that solve for the multifunctionality of recycling at the product level for determining the burden profiles of individual products. These product-level methods, however, often give varying environmental burden profiles and occasionally different conclusions for determining whether recycling causes greater or lesser burdens than linear product strategies. Such ambiguous results and findings across LCA methods confuse the public and decision-makers regarding the environmental implication of recycling compared to other material strategies. In this paper system expansion with multiple functions (SEMF) is investigated as a possible solution to the multifunctionality issue of recycling within life cycle assessment (LCA) whilst also providing a product-level perspective.MethodsThe background life cycle inventory (LCI) is based on ecoinvent 3.9 and the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method is based on ReCiPe 2016 (H). The study investigates the use of product-level methods and SEMF, both as separate approaches and as a proposal to combine them for addressing recycling in LCA. Simplified material flow assessment (MFA) is employed for calculating the foreground life cycle inventories (LCIs).Results/discussionProduct-level LCA methods of recycling strategies lead to a wide range of global warming potential (GWP) results for the same case scenario. This ambiguity prevents a uniform conclusion as to whether recycling causes lesser or greater burdens than linear material strategies. By contrast, it is demonstrated that SEMF finds one GWP for each recycling scenario, allowing for a less methodologically uncertain comparison with linear material strategies. It is also shown that attributional LCA (ALCA) in combination with MFA, can be used to build the SEMF study, bridging the informational gap between the product level and SEMF scopes of recycling in LCA.ConclusionThe sum of each product level ALCA can be used to assemble an LCA with the SEMF perspective. In this way, one can easily transition between the product level whilst comparing material strategies within a SEMF scope. To perform a SEMF-based LCA, it is necessary to include the number of times a recycled material is utilised and to employ MFA to track resource use, mass flows, and check balances. From this research further investigation is recommended into existing methods for establishing how many times a recycled material is or can be used. The authors also recommend further testing and use of the SEMF LCA method through its application in real-life scenarios.

Making service provisioning significantly more sustainable is crucial if humankind wants to make a serious effort to operate withinthe boundaries of what the planet can support. The purpose of this paper is to develop a systemic understanding of sustainability inservice provision and shed light on the mechanisms that drive unsustainability and hinder service providers in their efforts to bemore sustainable. To contextualize our study, we focus on a significant sustainability problem: food waste stemming from foodretail at the retailer-consumer interface. We make two theoretical contributions to the service research on sustainability. First, weoffer a systemic conceptualization of sustainability in service as a dynamic ability of a focal system (e.g., a servicefirm) to sustain thesystem(s) that contains it. Second, we explicate the mechanisms—stocks andflows, feedback and mindsets—that contribute to(un)sustainable service provision as a systemic behavior, and which can thus be used as intervention points when designingsustainability initiatives. Our work also has significant practical implications for food retailers and policymakers working towardsreaching UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, as we specify the feedback loops that drive food waste and hinder efforts toreduce it at the retailer-consumer interface.

In an era where food packaging plays a dual role in both reducing food waste and contributing to global packaging waste, this study presents an analysis of packaging-free systems. As governments and organizations attempt to address the environmental impact of single-use packaging, packaging-free alternatives have emerged as a promising solution. However, there is a need for a comprehensive assessment of environmental sustainability and its alignment with consumer behaviours and preferences in this growing type of grocery system. Considering this need, this study employs an integrative literature review process, selecting 51 research articles. This selection was classified into three principal areas: the characteristics of packaging-free services, the dynamics of consumer behaviour and patterns from a household perspective. This review evaluates the effectiveness of packaging-free systems, exploring the factors that drive consumer adoption, the obstacles to transitioning and the relevance of theoretical frameworks like the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and practice theory (PT) in understanding and assessing the sustainability of these alternatives. The result of this study is the identification of significant research gaps and opportunities, leading to a comprehensive research agenda. This agenda emphasizes the need for a more refined understanding of consumer classifications that extend beyond standard demographic metrics, delving into aspects like household structures, dietary preferences and regional variations. The study highlights the limited scope of existing literature by advocating for a holistic grocery analysis that blends packaging-free and conventional shopping practices to understand more realistic grocery scenarios, as not all products are available in packaging-free alternatives. It also underscores the importance of integrating environmental assessments with consumer behaviour studies to see the sustainability of the systems beyond reusable containers. Additionally, this research sheds light on the relatively unexplored area of online packaging-free services, questioning the sustainable implication of incorporating online alternatives in grocery practices, and suggests a broader application of theoretical frameworks, including activity theory (AT) as a new perspective to achieve a new understanding of these systems. Lastly, contributing to the overall understanding of packaging-free systems, the study concludes with a SWOT analysis that briefly identifies strengths in environmental sustainability and consumer awareness, balanced against weaknesses like data gaps and complex consumer decision-making processes. 

This article argues that citizens play a key role in sustainability transitions: Citizens have unique knowledge on why social problems occur and experiment with possible solutions to these problems. Yet transformative innovation policy - a policy frame that promotes socio-technical systems change - is guided by a producer-centric innovation paradigm, which focuses on technological breakthroughs rather than social changes driven by citizens. By drawing on multiple research fields, and by using the example of household food waste, this article challenges this paradigm and asserts that addressing sustainability challenges requires a policy frame that defines citizens as an innovation source.

Identifying causes of food waste at grocery retail level is crucial for the development of effective measures to reduce waste. Frontline employees manage food waste in their day-to-day operations; however, there is a paucity of research that draws attention to their knowledge of and approach to causes and measures to reduce food waste. In this empirical study, a mixed methods approach is adopted, using multiple interviews and participatory observations with employees, and primary quantitative data on fruit and vegetable waste for one year from the supermarkets. The results illuminate the fact that the role of employees is central for reducing food waste, and from their perspective, the causes and measures can be divided into four different main themes covering policy, practice, people and product. The analysis involves 73 different fruit and vegetables categories, and the fruit and vegetables waste at the three supermarkets is 60 tonnes. The results also reveal different causes for different fruit and vegetables categories, implying that generic descriptions of causes are not enough to use as bases for planning reduction measures. The paper provides a base for planning and implementing reduction measures for the grocery retail sector, which contribute to a sustainable food supply chain. 

Food wastage in households remains a sustainability challenge that poses both environmental and social problems. Among the many factors contributing to this problem, the packaging, including its design and functions, can either leverage or reduce food waste. Yet packaging is often considered an environmental villain, which can lead to missed opportunities for reducing food waste. Against this background, this study explored and quantified the packaging–food waste relationship in households. To explore this relationship, a multi-step method was applied to grasp the role of packaging in consumers’ everyday practices and routines. The method incorporated a questionnaire, food waste diary and in-depth interview to measure food waste across different food categories and explore the underlying reasons for food wastage. According to an analysis of 37 households, packaging played a significant role especially in bread, dairy, meat and staple food wastage. For countering this problem, the most important factors related to packaging are its size and display of detailed information about product safety and storage. This study's theoretical contribution lies in offering a service lens and an ‘outside-in’ approach for exploring the consumer's value creation process and providing a context for better understanding why food wastage occurs in households. For policymakers and packaging designers, this study provides new insights into the relationship between consumer food practices and packaging, thus informing future food waste reduction initiatives.

On-pack date and storage labeling is one of the direct information carriers used by the food industry to communicate product shelf-life attributes to consumers. However, it is also one of the major factors that contribute to consumer food waste issues. This study aims to systematically understand the existing tensions within the current date and storage labeling system and explore the potential opportunities for design to intervene. First, we conducted a literature review to identify tensions that the consumer encounters in their food edibility assessment system and summarize the corresponding proposal for actions. 12 tensions and 16 proposals for action were identified and further framed according to a conceptual model developed in this study. Following this, the literature findings were refined and grounded in co-creation sessions in consumer workshops and industry practitioner interviews to develop specific labeling-related design implications. The findings indicate the importance of investigating the role that date and storage labeling play from a system level. Furthermore, we suggest that the conceptual model developed in this study can be used not only as a framework that guides researchers to identify and analyze labeling-related food waste problems that each individual consumer encounters, but also as a guideline that assists packaging design practitioners in exploring potential design opportunities to solve the problem from a system perspective.