Promoting Circular Economy in Agri-Food Supply Chains

The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures focuses on advancing sustainability research and connecting it with the policy debate around how humans can live in a more sustainable way.
grantham.sheffield.ac.uk

We are recruiting Scholars who will combine outstanding intellect with a strong commitment to public engagement, leadership and action. These ambitious individuals will complete interdisciplinary PhD research projects to help solve the challenges of sustainability. They will be supported by the Centre through a unique training programme, designed to equip them with the skills to become policy advocates and leaders in sustainability matters.

Your application for this studentship should be accompanied by a CV and a 200 word supporting statement. Your statement should outline your aspirations and motivation for studying in the Grantham Centre, outlining any relevant experience.

’Please select ’Standard PhD’ and the Management School as a department. Fill in the title of your desired project and the name(s) of the supervisors’. The starting date of the PhD will be the start of the next academic year - 1 Oct 2017. The ’Funding stage’ on the form will be ’project studentship’.

The unprecedented growth in world’s population urges to develop new strategies to maximise the yield of food production systems and minimise wastage. FAO estimates that, on a global scale, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally (1.3BN tons per year); even in the EU, 88MM tons of food are wasted annually. In order to respond to general resource efficiency challenges, stakeholders and policy-makers are embracing the Circular Economy paradigm. Through a holistic multi-disciplinary approach (combining supply chain and operations management, social sciences and plant sciences), this doctoral research will seek to address the applicability of a Circular Economy paradigm across agri-food supply chains. The research will also look at the challenges for implementing the Circular Economy in different geo-political contexts (including cases from the global North and South).

The project will include surveys of the presently existing Circular Economy projects in the food industry at the different levels, comparison of linear and circular production systems in selected food supply chains, practical and theoretical consideration of the compatibility of a Circular Economy model with free-market economic contexts and an investigation of policy mechanisms and initiatives needed for favouring the implementation of Circular Economy in global food systems.

Keywords:
Sustainable food production, Circular economy, Supply chains, Food waste