During the last week of May and into June I again ran the international version of my University of Pennsylvania class on innovation for sustainability (Global Collaboration for Sustainability: The Food-Water-Energy Nexus in Italy). 

As always, there was great reciprocity – I learned much from our highly-talented, diverse group of graduate students as we jointly explored the food-water-energy nexus and the challenges and opportunities involved in sustainably feeding a population of ten billion by 2050 while simultaneously  transforming the global food system to accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

And I learned much from the Italian people through my many observations of their focus on food, which is so central to their lives.

Life in Italy literally revolves around food, particularly in the cities.  The sound of clinking plates and espresso cups from endless eateries is both ubiquitous and comforting, echoing from each street and narrow twisting alleyway.  Early mornings hum with the noise of a constant stream of foodservice deliveries, while through the night workers clean up the aftermath and trucks haul away all of the related trash for disposal.  The noise related to feeding people never really stops, and each day the process begins anew.

It’s impossible to miss the centrality of food in Italy.  It immediately reinforces the linkage between food and the SDGs, simultaneously revealing the impact of the food system on human and planetary health and the vast opportunities for positive social and environmental change through food.

It is the perfect place to educate students on the food-water-energy nexus, with the aim of helping them move beyond awareness to action as leaders of transformational food system change.  

Throughout the week I experienced a number of key signals of the need for sustainable change related to our global food system.  And as I often stress in our class sessions, it’s essential to pay attention to these signals, recognize them for what they are, reflect on them deeply, engage with others on them, and ultimately seek to become change leaders to address them.

As readers of this blog know, I am always looking for signals of the need for advancing sustainability goals, particularly related to food system themes and food waste reduction.  And I find them continually in my travels, often unexpectedly. 

This week in Italy I had an inspiring conversation with a youthful barman at a sustainability-focused brewing operation – an individual with a passion for sustainability and community who is clearly wise beyond his years. 

During our impromptu conversation, I shared elements of my fascination with Italy and the city of Bologna while he rounded out my knowledge with his local perspective, patiently answering many of my questions.    

Well into our conversation, I mentioned the memorial (Sacrario dei Partigiani) at the Piazza Maggiore honoring the many Italian partisans killed in World War II, and how powerful I had found it to be – which prompted me to ask how that particular aspect of history was covered in the Italian educational system. 

In responding, he first deferred to his counterpart, who informed me that his grandmother had been displaced from her home during the War by a German officer.     

In subsequently describing the educational coverage, he added: “When it’s covered in schools, you learn it.  When your family tells you about it, you know it.”

I was struck by the profound nature of his comment in tandem with the casual nature in which it was delivered.  He didn’t have to think about such a powerful statement, it was clearly ingrained and came naturally to him.  It was core to both of them because their families had experienced it, and had passed on that highly personal knowledge to them.    

A Powerful Parallel

Later, while reflecting on my new friend’s commentary, I was struck by a parallel to another of my own observations this week.  Here I was, leading a class studying the food-water-energy nexus in Italy, exploring topics such as the challenge of feeding ten billion by 2050 within planetary boundaries, the need to accelerate innovation and collaboration to create a more sustainable food system, the tight linkage between food loss and waste and the SDGs, and the impact of the food system on climate change (and vice versa), and yet just one week before we arrived in Bologna the Emilia Romana region – a key food producing area – was hammered by six month’s worth of rain in 36 hours.

The Guardian called the flooding the worst in Italy in 100 years, noting that “an estimated 20,000 have been left homeless in a disaster that caused 23 rivers to burst their banks and 280 landslides, engulfing 41 cities and towns.”  More than a dozen citizens lost their lives in the flooding.  Relief operations were ongoing when I left.    

The impacts of the excessive rain were visible in Bologna.  As I transited from the airport to my hotel, I could see evidence of the flooding in parts of the city in the form of sandbags lining blocks, damaged store fronts, and damaged streets.  Neighboring cities such as Faenza, Cesena and Ravenna were hit particularly hard.

This epic flooding event followed a prolonged period of drought exacerbated by weeks of excessive, record heat in the summer of 2022 (which I personally experienced over a two-week period), leaving dry soils unable to absorb such a deluge of water. 

The drought, the extreme temperatures, and the excessive rainfall are all visible signals of climate change and the threat that it poses to food security.  Note that the Emilia Romana region is a key food producing sector in Italy, and the flooding killed much livestock, left thousands of farms underwater, and currently threatens the future productivity of orchards by suffocating root systems. 

I also reflected that Emilia Romagna’s problem of too much water following extreme drought conditions is identical to what the Tulare region of California is currently experiencing, where thousands of acres of crops are underwater and the melting snowpack threatens to exacerbate the damage in the coming months. 

So it’s fitting for all of us to stop and process the fact that we have two extremely critical food production regions simultaneously experiencing the same threats. 

Our class members experienced some other signals of the impact of climate change on food operations last week as well.  During a tour of a balsamic vinegar producer, we learned of the effects of last year’s excessive heat on their decades-old storage barrels, which led to expansion and seepage and the need for repairs (which is no small issue when you are dealing with “lines” of well-aged balsamic vinegar-producing barrels that are passed down from generation to generation). 

Further, the site’s owner pointed to two quintessential trees on the property (estimated to be 200 years old) that bloomed later than usual this year, leading to initial concerns among the family members that last year’s excessive have may have threatened their very survival. 

In addition, while touring a Parmigiano-Reggiano production facility, we learned that last summer’s excessive heat slowed the milk production of the cows, which is of course central to the cheese-making process.     

And I reflected that these are just a few of many examples of the threat that climate change poses to food security – as a string of reports from the IPCC and the WMO indicate – and that no country is immune to that threat. 

As we discuss in my courses, it’s essential that the nations of the world collaborate and innovate with urgency to address the intertwined challenges of climate change and food security, along with numerous related SDG challenges (soils, water security, deforestation, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, etc.).   

My Italian barman friend gets this.  During our conversation I learned of his interest in advancing sustainability issues and saw how he thought deeply about social problems and how to address them.  And I learned of his interest in community, and his desire to live in a place where he can participate with fellow community members to effectively lead positive social change.  His socially responsible focus is inspiring.

What he was talking about on so many levels is what our course is about – seeing signals of food system dysfunction, reflecting on those signals and related learnings, and engaging to become change agents in our individual circles (families, friends, religious organizations, workplaces), driving change in our business operations, driving change through policymakers (especially through our votes) and rewarding responsible business organizations with our purchasing power. 

Returning to Knowing

Which brings me back to the barman’s point about “knowing” versus learning.

We all see many signals of a fragile, dysfunctional food system each day in the form of widespread hunger, nutrition inequity, excessive waste, plastics pollution, etc.  We may only understand them at a superficial level.  We may pass them by because they are disturbing, or because they seem too daunting for us to impact as individuals.

But we can no longer ignore them. 

When we encounter these signals, we must engage.  We need to reflect deeply on the underlying causes and the impacts on fellow citizens and the planet, and in the process we must become change leaders. 

In short, we need to truly  “know” the need for change – and act accordingly.

The barman and his colleague “know” the horrors of Nazi subjugation because their grandparents lived it, and they passed their stories of the experience down to them.  And the memorial reminds them and other Italian citizens of the atrocities that occurred at the hands of the Nazis during the War and the sacrifices of resistance fighters.

We are all seeing alarms of another nature today specific to climate change and food security, because we have subjugated the planet to our wasteful, externality-laden global food system. 

We are all increasingly seeing the results; the costs are excessive and can no longer be ignored.    

We can “learn” about the need to transform the global food system through classes and various forms of media coverage, and especially through daily observations and reflection.

But we truly get to “know” the need for change when we experience the elements of dysfunction – when we see fellow citizens suffering from a lack of food, when we see the health impacts of insufficient nutrition among community members, and when we see (or are directly impacted by) climate-driven water scarcity, droughts, excessive rain events and flooding, excessive heat, massive wildfires, and plastics pollution.

As my colleague Andrew Shakman once expressed to me, once we “see” these impacts, we can’t “un-see” them.

And going a level deeper, tying back to my new Italian colleagues, once we experience these impacts, and truly reflect on them with and through others, we can’t “un-experience” them.

There is undoubtedly an element of discomfort in these experiences.  And we need to embrace that discomfort and channel it into action. 

With each experience of food system dysfunction or the impact of climate change on our ability to produce healthy food for all, we get to “know” the need to transform our global food system to accelerate progress toward the SDGs.

And as our class members embraced this week, it’s time for each of us to act on our knowledge and experiences and lead positive food system change.

**Note: This course is one aspect of my #123 Pledge to accelerate progress toward the global goal (Target 12.3) of halving food waste by 2030 by educating hundreds of citizens on the scope and scale of the food waste challenge and the linkage between food waste and multiple SDGs.