COwLEARNING for sustainable beef and dairy supply

Dairy and beef supply chains have been exposed to remarkable changes, caused by alterations of production conditions, technology or societal perceptions and claims. This led to a wide variety of sustainability performances and many aspects, which are perceived as unsustainable and untenable. Actors from farm to fork are caught in negative lock-ins and blame others for these constraints. We want to break this blame game by initializing a co-learning process of all actors (practitioners in farming, food processing, distribution/logistics, retail, gastronomy, and citizen-consumers) on transition paths to more sustainable beef and dairy chains. While there is broad consensus on the problems’ definition, there is a lack of knowledge on the targets for a more sustainable beef and dairy provision as well as on feasible transition paths. The project asks: 1. What has driven transitions in the cattle system and why have sustainability innovations (not) been implemented? 2. How do innovative dairy/beef chains compare in terms of animal and human welfare, the environment and socio-economic characteristics? 3. What are the conditions for up-scaling and legitimate, acceptable, and future-proof transition paths? After selecting relevant different “dairy plus beef” production cases (each case represented by a relevant number of farms and supply chain actors until final consumers), we apply an integrated sustainability assessment from farm to fork and combine it with transdisciplinary scenario and serious games. By doing so, we will adapt, apply and refine the heuristic approach of the Transition Management Framework. The project will contribute much-needed knowledge on the scaling of sustainability innovations, the transformability of beef and dairy chains, methodological advances for the Transition Management Framework as well as societally relevant knowledge for an integrative sustainability transition of dairy and beef supply chains.