Food waste presents a significant sustainability challenge for Australia's hospital and aged care facilities with 251,000 tonnes of food wasted annually [1]. In the health care sector, food waste can account for up to 50% of total waste [2, 3]. Similarly, the aged care sector generates more than 15,230 tonnes of food waste annually costing facilities on average $1,000 per week [4]. Food waste in these settings not only represents economic and environmental losses but may impact patient and resident well-being, such as nutritional deficiencies [5].
Our team of researchers at Adelaide Business School have been working alongside End Food Waste Australia to uncover sector-wide factors influencing food waste within hospitals and aged care facilities across Australia. To date, we have interviewed nineteen stakeholders (e.g., food service dietitians, managers, sustainability officers, government policy officers, food safety auditors, and industry representatives) across Australia's hospital and aged care sectors. Qualitative data from these interviews have been thematically analysed revealing several factors influencing food waste in hospitals and aged care settings such as strict regulatory environments and a lack of support for organisational-level change. Sector wide challenges in reducing food waste were also identified. Resource constraints and complexities inherent in operations necessitate a sector wide approach to developing sustainable food services.
Too often sustainability initiatives (incl. programs campaigns, and interventions) are designed by those with no real lived experience of the problem they are intending to solve [6]. Hospital food waste initiatives that are designed for and not with people fail to gain organisational and patient buy-in and subsequently fail to achieve objectives set [7]. Participation is a fundamental human right; however, evidence reviews suggest current definitions of ‘participation’ and its application vary considerably [8, 9]. Increasing genuine stakeholder engagement in health care leads to better participation and more relevant outcomes [10]. Moreover, stakeholder participation in co-design can facilitate innovation in health care by challenging existing discourses and decision-making pathways, thereby bringing about transformation in policy, culture, and service provision [11]. By drawing on participatory principles, mindsets, frames, and behaviours, our team of social marketers will teach workshop participants how to apply co-design to the development of multi-level sustainability initiatives in hospitals and aged care.
This 90-minute workshop will take participants through a seven-step co-design process [6] using hands-on activities to demonstrate how each step may be applied in practice. The context of these activities will be food waste. Workshop participants will learn how partnerships formed during the co-design process may be used to gain organisational and patient buy-in to support the implementation of sustainability initiatives. At the end of the workshop, participants will have the knowledge and skills to start applying co-design to the development of multi-level sustainability initiatives in hospital and aged care settings.
References available upon request.