Perspectives on “Game Changer” Global Challenges for Sustainable 21st Century: Plant-Based Diet, Unavoidable Food Waste Biorefining, and Circular Economy

TLDR

Planet Earth faces unsustainable stress from population growth, linear resource use, waste generation, and inequality, with the prevailing linear economy discarding recoverable resources and causing environmental and social harm. The study proposes multidisciplinary strategies—integrating chemistry, process engineering, and sustainability science—to address three interconnected food challenges: sustainable diets, valorisation of unavoidable food waste, and circular food value chains, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Using life‑cycle assessment, the authors rank food choices to promote plant‑based diets, design integrated biorefinery systems to convert unavoidable food waste into chemicals and energy, and develop regenerative bio‑surfactant‑based protein functionalisation for food and nutraceutical applications. The resulting circular economy model combines plant‑based protein sourcing with food‑waste valorisation, and the multidisciplinary analysis is expected to influence dietary policy, industry practices, and public awareness of food‑system circularity.

Abstract

Planet Earth is under severe stress from several inter-linked factors mainly associated with rising global population, linear resource consumption, security of resources, unsurmountable waste generation, and social inequality, which unabated will lead to an unsustainable 21st Century. The traditional way products are designed promotes a linear economy that discards recoverable resources and creates negative environmental and social impacts. Here, we suggest multi-disciplinary approaches encompassing chemistry, process engineering and sustainability science, and sustainable solutions in “game changer” challenges in three intersecting arenas of food: Sustainable diet, valorisation of unavoidable food supply chain wastes, and circularity of food value chain systems aligning with the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. In the arena of sustainable diet, comprehensive life cycle assessment using the global life cycle inventory datasets and recommended daily servings is conducted to rank food choices, covering all food groups from fresh fruits/vegetables, lentils/pulses and grains to livestock, with regard to health and the environment, to emphasise the essence of plant-based diet, especially plant-based sources of protein, for holistic systemic sustainability and stability of the earth system. In the arena of unavoidable food supply chain wastes, economically feasible and synergistically (energy and material) integrated innovative biorefinery systems are suggested to transform unavoidable food waste into functional and platform chemical productions alongside energy vectors: Fuel or combined heat and power generation. In the arena of circularity of food value chain systems, novel materials and methods for plant-based protein functionalisation for food/nutraceutical applications are investigated using regenerative bio-surfactants from unavoidable food waste. This circular economy or industrial symbiosis example thus combines the other two arenas, i.e., plant-based protein sourcing and unavoidable food waste valorisation. The multi-disciplinary analysis here will eventually impact on policies for dietary change, but also contribute knowledge needed by industry and policy makers and raise awareness amongst the population at large for making a better approach to the circular economy of food.