Food production and provisioning through Circular Urban Systems in European Cities

With an ever-expanding population concentrated in cities, it will be important to find solutions for more
sustainable and resilient food production methods in urban environments with less vulnerability to
supply-chain shocks. Urban farming systems have emerged to enable more resilient food provisioning
systems, offering promising solutions to secure food supplies, produce more sustainable food, and
reduce pressure on dwindling agricultural land by shifting food production to urban environments.
Nonetheless, many current and prospective urban farming systems rely heavily upon external material
and energy inputs, with little integration to their surrounding urban infrastructure, material and energy
flows. Thus, there is potential for further integration to promote more circular-based approaches through
industrial and urban symbiosis. However, there is a lack of research and knowledge related to applying
and assessing symbiotic strategies for urban food production systems. The overall aim of this project is
to explore, envision, develop, and analyze strategies to promote more circular-based food production in
cities to enable sustainable and resource-efficient food provisioning. This will be done through an
international consortium of municipalities, private actors, and researchers from different disciplines to
highlight and facilitate circular approaches and methods in different contexts in European cities