Zero Emission Cold-Chain(ZECC) - Building the Road to Sustainable Cold-Chain Systems for Food Resilience
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: Chemical Engineering
Abstract
This project will bring together (i) world-leading interdisciplinary researchers from the UK working across the food cold chain sector and sustainable energy; (ii) stakeholder industries; (iii) new technology innovators and (iv) cold-chain customers from farmer to retailer to provide fundamental new knowledge and a whole systems approach to redefine the cold-chain architecture and map the opportunities available to reach net zero emissions by 2050 so as to deliver (i) demand and climate adaptation, (ii) resilience and (iii) decarbonisation of the cold-chain for the food industry and its stakeholders from farmer and fishers to consumers simultaneously.
The food cold chain is complex and lacks integration between sectors. Although technological challenges exist, many decarbonisation issues are techno-economic or behavioural. The project will integrate technical (engineering and food quality/safety), behavioural, financial and business aspects to provide sustainable integrated solutions to the decarbonisation conundrum. More than 60% of our food is dependent on the cold-chain, and cold-chain is a major contributor to our energy demand. The project will provide new information into in a field that has not been researched from a system approach yet.
The food cold chain is complex and lacks integration between sectors. Although technological challenges exist, many decarbonisation issues are techno-economic or behavioural. The project will integrate technical (engineering and food quality/safety), behavioural, financial and business aspects to provide sustainable integrated solutions to the decarbonisation conundrum. More than 60% of our food is dependent on the cold-chain, and cold-chain is a major contributor to our energy demand. The project will provide new information into in a field that has not been researched from a system approach yet.
Organisations
- University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- Chilled Food Association (Project Partner)
- Star Refrigeration Ltd (Project Partner)
- United for Efficiency (Project Partner)
- United Nations (Project Partner)
- Federation of Environmental Trade Associ (Project Partner)
- Hubbard Products (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Wave Refrigeration (Project Partner)
- Cold Chain Federation (Project Partner)
- British Frozen Foods Federation (Project Partner)
- Foodservice Equipment Association (Project Partner)
- Bitzer UK (Project Partner)
- Food & Drink Federation (Project Partner)
Publications
Zunder T
(2016)
Handbook on Transport and Urban Planning in the Developed World
Foster, A
(2022)
Baseline Refrigeration Emissions in the UK
De A
(2022)
Optimization model for sustainable food supply chains: An application to Norwegian salmon
in Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
Aditjandra P
(2022)
Cold chain: a new challenge for sustainable road freight
Hussain I
(2023)
POSTER: Zero Emission Cold-Chain (ZECC)
Aditjandra P
(2023)
Cold chain: what problem? Where we are and what we do not know
| Description | Advanced postharvest understanding to reduce food loss across the supply chain |
| Amount | £8,760 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2023 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | Transport Industrial and Commercial Refrigeration |
| Amount | £679,978 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Title | Data matrices for Food Loss/Waste(FLW) and global warming potential estimates for UK produce |
| Description | Two data matrices have been developed for WP4 - i) an analysis of food loss and waste estimates for UK horticultural products at specific supply chain stages and ii) estimates of environmental impacts (global warming potential) of UK fresh produce, again broken down by supply chain stage. Both have been produced from literature reviews |
| Type Of Material | Data analysis technique |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Both of these areas will be combined to enable identification of food loss and waste hotspots in the UK supply chain to guide later activities |
| Title | Dataset of drivers for food cold chain demand up to 2050 |
| Description | A list f drivers are collected from the literature on their impact of food cold chain demand. The drivers cover technology, infrastructure, social, behavioural, finance and environmental aspects. |
| Type Of Material | Data handling & control |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The dataset provides useful information for developing a model to estimate GHG emissions of future food cold chain in the UK. |
| Title | Quantifying Food Loss and Waste for Fresh Produce in the UK - Stakeholder Survey |
| Description | A survey has been developed for use in the UK supply chain to quantify food loss/waste (FLW) in fresh produce and identify key FLW drivers. |
| Type Of Material | Data handling & control |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | No impacts to date, but once deployed the survey will provide up-to-date evidence for the incidence of food loss and waste in the UK supply chain, including volumes and root causes. This will be used to identify hotspots for intervention through the project, although the wider data will also be useful for benchmarking loss and waste for sector stakeholders looking to improve their current practice. |
| Description | Article in New Yorker magazine |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | The article in the New Yorker titled 'Africa's Cold Rush and the Promise of Refrigeration' (online ) helped to bring attention and focus to the importance of sustainable cooling on food and vaccine supply chains. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/22/africas-cold-rush-and-the-promise-of-refrigeration |
| Description | Local to Global Cold Chain Summit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Local to Global Cold-chain summit took place on the 29th September 2022 at the University of Birmingham, hosted by the Centre of Sustainable Cooling. The event brought together more than 50 research, industry and government partners from the UK, EU and Africa to share their knowledge and discuss research and innovation needs and collaboration opportunities to operationalise sustainable, equitable and resilient cold-chains for food and health globally. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Local to Global Cold-chains for food and health resilience |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Purpose was to inform policymakers and seek to influence future policy in this area in Rwanda, Kenya. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Sustainable Cold-Chain Systems For Food Resilience |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This was in collaboration with the Sustainable Cold-Chain Systems For Food Resilience (SCC) project which feeds into the ZECC project. The event had good participation and discussion and feedback from attendees |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ukerc.ac.uk/events/sustainable-cold-chain-systems-for-food-resilience-3/ |
| Description | The Clean Heating and Cooling Forum- COP27 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The event attracted global audiences with a lively question and answer session with requests for further information following the event. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | VIP Visit to Africa centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | COP President, the Rt. Hon. Alok Sharma MP, visited the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-chain (ACES) during his attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda. The COP President said, "ACES is a demonstration of how we can work together, to help tackle rising emissions and keep alive the goal of limiting average global temperature rises to 1.5°C.' The visit has raised the profile of sustainable cooling and cold-chain and sparked discussions and further questions from the target audience on engagement with the activities around cooling and cold-chain. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Zero emissions cold chain stakeholders event. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The event was aimed at business/industry partners to brief them on the progress of work and obtain feedback on the industry perspective. The session generated a healthy discussion and very useful feedback to be incorporated in to the research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |