Who wants my half-eaten sandwich? Food waste in the digital Sharing economy

Please join us for our next Monday departmental seminar on the 28th of February from 15:00 to 16:00 at the Porter Auditorium.

https://tau-ac-il.zoom.us/j/83229921170

Who wants my half-eaten sandwich? Food waste in the digital Sharing economy

Dr. Tamar Makov, Ben Gurion University

Abstract

Global post-harvest food loss is estimated at 1.3 billion tons per year - an extraordinary waste of embodied resources and energy, not to mention the ethical travesty of wasting a full third of the global food harvest while one in nine humans on Earth suffers from chronic undernourishment. Given that both unwanted supply and unmet demand for food co-exists within the same geographies, passing on editable yet unwanted food to those interested in eating it could deliver environmental and social benefits.
And since it’s the 21st century there’s an app for that.
We examine if the digital sharing economy as implemented via networks of mobile apps and users, can provide meaningful assistance to reducing food waste in a relatively low-impact and environmentally-sound way.
Analyzing data provided by OLIO, a free peer-to-peer (P2P) food-sharing platform with over 5 million users worldwide we use combination of data science methods along with geo-spatial network analysis, econometrics and environmentally extended Input output analysis (EEIO) to examine the types, weights, and retail value of foods offered and shared, quantify the associated environmental impacts, and investigate the socio-economic characteristics of the platform’s user network.