Welcome

Enabling regional food economy transformations through research and implementation of sustainable solutions

The Sustainable Food Economy Lab is part of the School of Sustainability in the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University.

We are excited about the ongoing advances in transforming food economies towards sustainability in many regions worldwide. We contribute to these efforts through research, teaching, and outreach.

We support small- to medium-sized food enter­prises (food SMEs) in adopting sustainable business practices and models. Particularly, we support start-up efforts and conversions to sustainability-oriented and innovative cooperative businesses, benefit corporations, and social enterprises. We also work with organizations and agencies that provide support functions to these enterprises through sustainability-oriented policy-making, financing, and training. Here, we focus on inclusive food democracy, social finance, and organizational capacity building for design programs that serve underrepresented groups.

We mostly work with sustainable food economies in Arizona, in Germany, and in the trinational Upper-Rhine Region (Baden-Württemberg, Alsace, and Northeastern Switzerland). Nonetheless, we collaborate with food economy scholars and practitioners across the U.S. and internationally.