Food Futures at Provinssi 2024

The Food Futures research project related to the course Sustainable Consumption (GPC-001) participated in the in the last week of June 2024.  Our aim was to help empower citizen-consumer meal choices with lower carbon gas emissions, and to learn about festival visitors’ daily meal choices and opinions about climate change.  Provinssi had 85,000 visitors this year, an all-time record.

UH Roadmap to Carbon Net Zero and general commitment to sustainability

The University of Helsinki aims to be a leader in sustainability and responsibility, as announced in its Carbon neutral University of Helsinki by 2030 – . The purpose of the roadmap is to determine effective ways to reduce the University’s climate emissions, calculate its carbon footprint, and identify its positive effects on climate (i.e., its carbon handprint). Carbon neutrality efforts play a significant role in the University’s sustainability and responsibility , which was published in 2022. The University’s emission reduction measures, outlined in the roadmap, include carbon neutral facilities, sustainable procurement, low-emission travel and transport, and sustainable eating habits. In addition to combating climate change, it is the crucial role of universities to study how to adapt to it, as well as to educate current and future generations about the importance of environmental matters. The University of Helsinki is also committed to the 12 theses of sustainable development issued by (UNIFI). The seventh of these theses describes methods by which universities can become carbon neutral.

GPC wins Sparkle grant for translating Food Futures app

, a project which supports more sustainable meal choices by transforming intent into action, was among the 12 out of 46 University of Helsinki applicants that won the , a funding program that seeks to promote a culture of sustainability and advance environmental consciousness in our University community. Applications were submitted from all of the University’s campuses, as well as from its independent institutes and research stations. The project’s Food Futures app facilitates and encourages more sustainable dietary choices and provides its users with information about the environmental impact of their UniCafe meals. The app promotes sustainable collective action while illustrating the environmental impact of individual and collective meal choices. The app utilizes a community cryptocurrency to measure, record, and validate sustainable meal choices. The app was introduced in the , which focused on ways to address the environmental crisis through individual and collective action. In order to enhance the app’s accessibility to Finnish speakers, it is now also available in Finnish. Food Futures is partly funded by , was originally part of the , and has been operational in Unicafe since 2022.

Food Futures at Provinssi

Food Futures was offered the opportunity to showcase its approach at the  which was held the last week of June.  Our project was assigned a visible booth in the festival’s Food Garden area, and three vendors—, , and —used  the Food Future’s labeling system to designate low carbon impact meals.  This year the festival had a total of 85,000 visitors.  Researchers asked visitors to the Food Futures booth to participate in a voluntary survey about their attitudes toward and opinions about climate change and daily food consumption choices.  This event provided visibility for the University of Helsinki and made visible the Food Future’s project’s efforts to engage the Finnish public through having material available in the Finnish language, which was central to the Sparkle grant.

From this Provissi experience the Food Futures research team learned about the importance of making all materials available in Finnish, whether in an app form, or the form of public articles, flyers, and scientific texts.  As well, we became aware of the research being conducted at the (Seinäjoen ammattikorkeakoulu SeAMK) in the area of Sustainable Food Solutions. There was some skepticism about foreign researchers having enough local knowledge to contribute to regional sustainability efforts. As well, some visitors mentioned the difficulty of single individuals having impact on large scale sustainability challenges.

Climate Change as Global Predicament

Food insecurity and climate change are intertwined.  They pose a significant risk to the ecological balance and well-being of people and wildlife. In the , 6 billion people are threatened by reduced water availability. This leads to the reduction of agricultural output, such as crop yields of in lower altitude regions, and the consequent increase in plant-based food prices globally ( in 2050). There is a gap in climate related research from the Global South perspective, which highlights an because members of those nations are underrepresented along with their analysis of environmental challenges. 

The frequent temperature fluctuations can result in intense and extreme precipitation. Such fluctuations are linked to tropical cyclones like Amphan, as well as flash floods and landslides which put lives, livelihoods and infrastructure at risk. Along with rising temperatures, South Asia faces hotter temperature conditions.  For instance, recorded the highest temperature of more than 52 °C between 2022-2024.  in eight countries of the South Asian region have been affected by climate-related disasters. High rising average temperatures (+4 °C by 2100) could leave up to undernourished by 2050 in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. 

This situation of rising average global temperatures and attendant weather challenges is exacerbated by the socio-economic and political inequalities faced by many who live in the Global South.  , who typically do not have the option of migration, are less equipped to effectively deal with extreme weather patterns.  A is necessary to generate climate impact models addressing the Global South given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change so far lacks consensus on climate projections for that vast region. 

Conclusion

The Provinssi festival has been held for over 40 years and Seinäjoki is one of Finland’s most agriculturally intensive regions with the Atria Oyj meat producer within 10 kilometers. While Provinssi incentives companies to offer sell vegan food, and . The Food Futures initiative aims to lower the CO2 emissions of daily meal choices by advocating a reducitarian approach.  In the background facts reveal a lack of consistent of regulatory and public support for reduced carbon impact diets.  For example, the  mainly subsidized animal products in the 2010s. In Finland most domestic beef consumption is from dairy cattle, yet in the mid 2010s, .  When we additionally consider the possibility of operations which compromise the quality of meat products, well as the , there is a good overall argument for simply reducing carbon intensive meat consumption without necessarily adopting a solely plant-based protein diet.