Sustainability in School Food Systems: Lessons and Recommendations for European Policies

1. European Experiences on policies and strategies for the development of sustainable school food systems • Lessons learned and recommendations • Esperienze Europee sulle ”policies” e strategie per lo sviluppo di Ristorazioni Scolastiche Sostenibili • - Lezioni fatte e raccomandazioni IPOPY - Innovative Public Organic food Procurement for Youth Work Package 2 – Policy Analysis Sune Netterstrøm sune.netterstroem@areaeuropa.it

2. Apparently so simple… Apparentemente cosi semplice…

3. … and yet so complex! …eppure cosi complesso! EU/State level Organic Food supply chain Producer associations Regions Knowledge Centres Provinces Catering Nutritional experts Municipality Schools Consumer associations Teachers Children/Parents

4. Policy Analysis Studies of WP 2 • Four Countries : Norway, Finland, Italy and Denmark • National policy context – National report from each country • Municipal/Regional Case Studies • Norway: 1 Municipality • Finland: 2 Municipalities • Italy: 3 Municipalities (+ regional case) • Denmark: 4 Municipalities • Comparative analysis, Findings and Recommendations

5. The Policy Concept in IPOPY • Systemic approach • Top Down/ Bottom Up/Multi stake-holder governance • Process view – Stakeholders, structures and discourses • Main interests: • Why so big differences between Countries/Municipalities? • How can we facilitate knowledge exchange and transfer of good practices?

6. Sustainable school food as one agenda in alliance (or conflict) with other agendas Local food production vs. Free global market Supporting local/national organic producers Public legitimization crisis Health/Obesity Social welfare Private organic food demand Food Culture/Identity Organic Sustainable School Food Institutional/Organisa- tional agendas Development of public schools Climate Change agenda Minimal state Efficiency Individualism vs. Collectivism Technological and struc- tural dev. of agriculture Economic Crisis Ecological Footprint Participation

7. Model: Three strategic layers in the development of POP Model: Three strategic layers in the development of POP • Impact of school food system: • more institutions with organic products • higher share of organic products in each institution • better and more sustainable food • …Other Progress Robustness - Cohesion • The robustness and social cohesion of the school food system • Stakeholders values and interests • Structural driving forces • Cooperation and networks • Alliances and compatibility with other discourses/AoI Innovativeness • Innovative capability of the whole system: • sytemtic flexibility and resources to experiment and learn (”topia”) • continuous development of the long term visions and values (”utopia”)

8. Each of the three layers is important • Each layer is correlated with the other layers positively and negatively • Each layer and their correlations is context dependent (i.e country,municipality or school) • How can we compare and learn from one context to another?

9. Intro of Organic and sust. dev. Establishment of Public School Food Embeddedness and double-embedding

11. Conclusions • There is a very good potential for exchange of experiences and good practices • However size and cultural context is very important! • Rather than direct transfer – Inspiration! Things can be different! • Direct exchange and coaching between key stakeholders (facilitated by researchers/ other) • Learning between ”new” and ”mature” systems • The single cases of development of sustainable school food system are results of many interacting factors • Need to understand better the process of embedding (robustness and innovativeness) • Need to understand better the process and consequences of alliances and conflicts with other agendas • Need of sound criticism inside the systems!