Regulate restaurants to control the amount of food waste with Food Waste Act in 2030
Back in 2022, supermarkets and restaurants often charged lesser for taking more. This tempted customers to purchase more even when not required, leading to greater amounts of waste.
Partner with
Southwark Council, Paper Garden, The Dockland Settlement Centre, UAL Climate Studio
Services
Speculative Design, Policy Making, Community Social Action, Workshop
Skills & Tools
Rapid Prototyping, Field Interview, Evidence Safari, Workshop
The Challenge
How can we support Southwark Council’s climate emergency action plan to become carbon neutral by 2030 through the lens of food system?
The Process
We adopted Research Through Design towards preferable futures, built rapid prototyping with 5 times testing and iteration based on desk research and field interviews on food waste to tackle climate crisis. We tackled the issues of food waste in hospitality after exploring carbon footprints, packaging, consumer behaviour and stigma around food poverty. I mainly contributed to the making process of rapid prototype, field research, interview with 15 residents and the reinvention of business model for the restaurants.
The Proposal
Responding to the identified question, “What if the hospitality sector had stricter regulations regarding food waste?”, in 2030, the policy Food Waste Act is introduced that restaurants incorporate portion sizes into their menus. If customers waste any food they ordered, they will be charged. The payment would go towards the fine that needs to be paid by food and beverage businesses.
The impact
A Food Waste Act in 2030 introduces the plausible and preferable futures to tackle food waste as well as the environment problems from the policy-making perspective of restaurant services in Southwark. It influences the residents in the community to contribute to climate emergency.
Outcome-regulation Food Waste Act 2030
Outcome-Menu with portion sizes
Outcome-Food waste campaign
Outcome-Food waste charge at restaurants
Kick-start
When it comes to climate change, how can more citizens engage with the future services in 2030? We locked at food system which is more accessible for us and residents in Southwark. The first warm-up prototype was “Gramma’s Kitchen”, a kitchen in the supermarket where people are allowed to buy the almost expired food and cook here with the volunteering elderly.
Step 1: Imagine the sustainable worldview of 2030
Building the world context around societal system in 2030
To communicate the entire futuristic worlds, systems and structures to better trigger citizens’ thoughts on the future, we created newspaper covered with two different voices and started to think about the social-cultural context in 2030.
We created carbon points system to limit what people consume to alert the critical issues of climate change and role-played a couple’s day of buying groceries.
Step 2: Prototyping through research and testing
Imagining the future food waste with making and testing
With the evidence of desk research, we brought “What if“ to future making within the scope of speculative design. We iteratively came up with different questions around carbon footprint packaging, consumer behaviour and stigma around food poverty. The 4 times iterations of the prototype testing with Southwark residents led us to the last ideation of Choose Portions You Can Finish.
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the 2nd Prototypes of the Future Grocery Shopping in 2030
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the 3rd Prototypes of the Earth Box and Testing with residents in Southwark
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the 4th Prototypes of the Zero Waste Box & Iteration into Fix It Yourself
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the 5th Prototypes of Choose Portions You Can Finish
Step 3: Iteration workshop for future food with children
Framing ideas of local food growing at the Paper Garden
Meanwhile, we went to the paper garden with paper Persona to facilitate a teenager workshop to frame ideas and imagine the new possibilities of local food growing.
During the workshop, we noticed the empowerment from authority. This led us to think from the upstream to downstream. What if the hospitality sector had stricter regulations regarding food waste?
Step 4: Propose the policy on food waste in 2030
“Strategically, the designer as re-directive practitioner needs to be a leader, initiating as well as reacting. This means putting dynamic, rigorous and workable alternatives into the public domain.”
Be radical to implement the policy on food waste in 2030
To constrain the food waste, we looked into the waste caused by people, who fail to finish and the amount of food being served and left because of the over-large portion and the advertising of such a value ”More for Less”.
That’s the development of outcome as A Food Waste Act in 2030. It’s the legislation that encourages consumers to order food based on their appetite portion for less waste and pay the fines if there is too much leftover.
The reflection
The food waste fine is not appealing to our consumers and restaurants, so our designer’s role in such a situation is a practitioner, especially for future design, we have the responsibility to make the public domain more welcome and open.
Unavoidably, there is limitation that the Act is too provocative but encouraging for people to adopt a new sustainable lifestyle. It is the provoking thoughts it brings for future vision that matters.
For more details of the project, please read the blog.