Team:Thessaly/Sustainable
Overview
“Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
In 2015, the United Nations proposed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a common plan for peace and prosperity for all member countries, developed or developing, that introduced 17 Sustainable Development Goals. As an iGΕΜ team, we designed our project with the purpose of establishing a toolkit to assist in the achievement of the United Nations SDGs. With our project, AMALTHEA, we consider five SDGs: 2, 3, 4, 12 and 17. We worked towards receiving feedback from relevant stakeholders and acting upon UNs SDGs goals through our actions.
Illustrating our Goals
The Global Sustainable Development Report is the only comprehensive, global report on sustainable development. It identifies six entry points for transformation and four key levers to accelerate those. The six entry points are:
Food systems (FS) encompass the entire range of actors and their interlinked value-adding activities involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food products that originate from agriculture,forestry or fisheries, and parts of the broader economic, societal and natural environments in which they are embedded.
The food system is composed of sub-systems (e.g. farming system, waste management system, input supply system, etc.) and interacts with other key systems (e.g. energy system, trade system, health system, etc.). Therefore, a structural change in the food system might originate from a change in another system; for example, a policy promoting more biofuel in the energy system will have a significant impact on the food system.
A sustainable food system (SFS) is a food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised. This means that:
– It is profitable throughout (economic sustainability);
– It has broad-based benefits for society (social sustainability); and
– It has a positive or neutral impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability).
Research and innovation actions needed cover both technical and non-technical interventions.
Tackling the challenges ahead of us, microbiome technical interventions should focus on enhancing agricultural sustainability and productivity to address the increasing demand for food while coping with the expected climate impacts. Microbiomes can improve soil health and restoration through bioremediation of degraded or contaminated habitats, enhancing soil carbon sequestration and preventing erosion of top soils. Focusing on food quality for producing higher nutritional quality foods and promoting the reduction of microbial contaminants, preventing the outbreaks of foodborne diseases such as COVID-19. Microbiome research could reduce our reliance on fossil fuel inputs in agriculture and decreasing the N2O flux and thereafter help with climate change mitigation. Microbiome research and innovation is relatively new area therefore, technical interventions should aim at new industrial sectors developing new inoculants and enzymes for the industry.
The element we consider most essential for the non-technical interventions is citizen engagement and the co-creation with a wide diversity of actors. This will foster greater awareness raising and appreciation of the benefits and solutions, as well as the integration of multiple forms of knowledge. Secondly, the education of new generation of scientists on systemic microbiome research will ensure a holistic/systemic approach and could provide the public and policymakers with life-cycle analysis of microbiome-based solutions. Equally important are public-private partnerships, targeting microbiome standards, reference materials, and data linked with large data infrastructures.(FOOD 2030 Pathways for Action)
Improvement in people’s lives must be accompanied by lifestyle changes that lower total energy demand. Social, business and technological innovations would generate services with far lower total energy use, while diets across the world would move towards better nutrition, with improved agricultural productivity, and preferences for less livestock-intensive foods that would lead to change. Changes in food habits towards healthier dietary habits can result from individual and collective action. The involvement of the scientific community can directly influence phenomena that range from the consumption choices made by families, to influencing governance initiatives such as mandatory food labelling and schools’ limiting students’ access to sugary drinks.
Many people in developed countries could lower their demand for animal products while also improving their health by eating less meat, or adopting meat-light or meat-free diets. A shift away from staples and towards foods with higher nutritional value would enhance nutrition in many developing countries. As a result, changes in food habits are context-dependent. Food consumption patterns can be changed from an early age through education on sustainable and healthy diets, as well as by involving the private sector to limit ultra processed food promotion and advertising.
Food and agriculture are at the heart of civilization and prosperity. Achieving this Goal will require better access to food and the widespread promotion of sustainable agriculture. Globally, the proportion of undernourished people declined from 15 per cent in 2000-2002 to 11 per cent in 2014-2016. Furthermore, agricultural productivity increases would ensure food security for everyone only if access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food is secured. Our team aids in the achievement of Goal 2 by ensuring food security especially by safeguarding Animal Welfare.
The targets of SDG 3 cover and focus on various aspects of healthy life and healthy lifestyle. Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. One of the nodal purposes of our project is to contribute to the achievement of this goal. Reducing premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment, is one of the targets included in Goal 3. We propose a complete prevention toolkit that is able to Detect, Evaluate, and Ameliorate Gut Dysbiosis, thus contributing to the achievement of Goal 3. AMALTHEA can also be a helpful toolkit for resolving mental health issues and as a result ensuring well-being.
Our introduction of Synthetic Biology in High School education addressed both students and teachers, and was executed in a way to achieve as many targets from the SDG4 as possible. We emphasized on the development of high-level cognitive and non-cognitive skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork and communication skills, on behalf of the students. Moreover, we aimed for the vocational guidance of our audience so that more of them are equipped well enough to make their future decisions in a responsible way.Finally, we have scheduled a presentation of our educational material to Έλιξ, a non-governmental organisation aiming to promote eductaion to migrants arriving in Greece, after we contacted and received a positive feedback with Angeliki Sifaki,Project Coordinator.
Achieving economic growth and sustainable development, requires urgent reduction of our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources. Our holistic approach to tackle the issue of GI disorders includes the adoption of a Mediterranean-based diet along with the responsible choice in food and products. This choice came to fulfill a nutritional pattern based on our country's resources, strengthening our local market and national economy and promoting food choices based on locality and seasonality, all according to The 100-Mile Diet concept. This philosophy is well integrated in the application we have developed, e-AMALTHEA, which provides dietary patterns that recommend customizable Mediterranean diet-based meals to the user for each day, so that they can follow the Mediterranean diet in a personalized manner. The inspiration and theoretical background for the development of this software utility were mainly provided by an event we hosted, by the name of “My Mediterranean Diet”, in which experts on the field of nutrition and cultural heritage provided insights on how we have co-evolved with what we eat, the importance of good cooking, and the responsible consumption that reflect upon locally based dietary habits. We also created “Hippocrates”, a children’s book about a little boy who faced a gut-related disease. Under the auspices of the theatrical workshop “Without Omega”, we collaborated with the theatrologists, Antonia Magou and Nadia Angelouli and through reading the children’s book “Hippocrates”, we introduced the kids to the Mediterranean diet.
According to Maltais, A. et al., (2018) , Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 calls for strengthening the means of implementing the Agenda 2030. In particular, it calls for investing in the global partnership for realising sustainable development all over the world. Achieving the ambitions of this agenda will require, among others, deepening partnerships between government, the private sector and civil society, increasing international cooperation and improving coherence between policies and initiatives, both domestically and internationally. As such, meeting the targets and ambitions of SDG 17 is absolutely essential for successfully advancing the entire SDG agenda. The aforementioned conditions make SDG 17 a purpose our project couldn’t ignore.
Around June, the iGEM team of iGEM TAS_Taipei (Taiwan), introduced iGEMxSDGs challenge. iGEMxSDGs was a challenge that invited all teams of iGEM to match their project to the respective SDGs targeted by their teams. The goal was to raise awareness of the SDGs within the iGEM community and to the public. We happily accepted the nomination to participate and posted our goals on our social media platforms.
Afterwards in mid September, we participated at the SDGs Conference hosted by the TAS_Taipei team. We were given the opportunity to complete tasks in accordance with the SDG each team chose to tackle, aiding them in their effort to make their project even more sustainable. At the event, each team presented why it is important to target sustainability in every iGEM project and how we managed to complete the team SDG tasks, all in a great spirit of friendship and cooperation.
Also, we developed a partnership with team iGEM Aalto-Helsinki and team iGEM McMaster exchanging ideas and evolving our projects together.
“Syniparxis Forum 2021”
We also participated in “Syniparxis Forum 2021”, which is the first forum organized by the organization “Portal of Sustainable Development”. The end goal of the forum is to promote Sustainable Development Goals in Greece and to make a valuable discussion with experts from the field of science, government, and industry. We presented our project AMALTHEA in a panel discussion, with Bill Stenos, CEO of Solmeya and discussed the SDGs that we targeted.
Scouts of Greece
Recently, the Greek Scouts, loyal to their commitment to a world without inequality, with equal opportunities, respect for diversity and proud ambassadors of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, signed the Charter of Diversity. So, we thought to contact our local scouting network in Larissa, discuss what it takes to ensure by action sustainability and inform them how Synthetic Biology can become a promising tool to change the world for the better. Learn more on our Education Page
Safeguarding Society via Animal Welfare
Limited progress on AntiMicrobial Resistance (AMR) result in a rise of poverty, pushing 24 million people into extreme poverty by 2030. This will affect the livestock production in low-income countries. If a high AMR scenario happens, there will be 7% of productivity loss by 2030. As animal protein has a vital role for women and children, there will be immediate influence in human’s health. Thus, many will need effective effective antibiotic in order to treat their diseases, while antimicrobial resistance puts patients at risk for life-threatening infections. So, AMR has a freat impact in the global economic growth as it can amount to losses of $3.4 trillion by 2030. Reduction on economic growth mostly to low-income countries will lead to further economic inequality between countries trespassing the sustainable goals that all countries of the world have set.
Entry Points |
|
| Human well-being and capabilities | Energy decarbonization and universal access |
| Sustainable and just economies | Energy decarbonization and universal access |
| Food systems and nutrition patterns | Global environmental commons |
Four levers |
|
| Governance | Individual and collective behavior |
| Economy and finance | Science and technology |
Food Systems and Nutrition Patterns
The food system is composed of sub-systems (e.g. farming system, waste management system, input supply system, etc.) and interacts with other key systems (e.g. energy system, trade system, health system, etc.). Therefore, a structural change in the food system might originate from a change in another system; for example, a policy promoting more biofuel in the energy system will have a significant impact on the food system.
A sustainable food system (SFS) is a food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised. This means that:
– It is profitable throughout (economic sustainability);
– It has broad-based benefits for society (social sustainability); and
– It has a positive or neutral impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability).
While a sustainable food system has many points of entry we believe that the following figure illustrates the areas and points of actions that AMALTHEA can help bring to life. Through evaluation of the gut flora, guidelines could be given to alter their dietary habits, propose nutrinional functional foods that provide more nutrients in a smaller quantity of food, utilise less resources for food production which in turn lowers the environmental burdern.
Research and innovation actions needed cover both technical and non-technical interventions.
Tackling the challenges ahead of us, microbiome technical interventions should focus on enhancing agricultural sustainability and productivity to address the increasing demand for food while coping with the expected climate impacts. Microbiomes can improve soil health and restoration through bioremediation of degraded or contaminated habitats, enhancing soil carbon sequestration and preventing erosion of top soils. Focusing on food quality for producing higher nutritional quality foods and promoting the reduction of microbial contaminants, preventing the outbreaks of foodborne diseases such as COVID-19. Microbiome research could reduce our reliance on fossil fuel inputs in agriculture and decreasing the N2O flux and thereafter help with climate change mitigation. Microbiome research and innovation is relatively new area therefore, technical interventions should aim at new industrial sectors developing new inoculants and enzymes for the industry.
The element we consider most essential for the non-technical interventions is citizen engagement and the co-creation with a wide diversity of actors. This will foster greater awareness raising and appreciation of the benefits and solutions, as well as the integration of multiple forms of knowledge. Secondly, the education of new generation of scientists on systemic microbiome research will ensure a holistic/systemic approach and could provide the public and policymakers with life-cycle analysis of microbiome-based solutions. Equally important are public-private partnerships, targeting microbiome standards, reference materials, and data linked with large data infrastructures.(FOOD 2030 Pathways for Action)
Improvement in people’s lives must be accompanied by lifestyle changes that lower total energy demand. Social, business and technological innovations would generate services with far lower total energy use, while diets across the world would move towards better nutrition, with improved agricultural productivity, and preferences for less livestock-intensive foods that would lead to change. Changes in food habits towards healthier dietary habits can result from individual and collective action. The involvement of the scientific community can directly influence phenomena that range from the consumption choices made by families, to influencing governance initiatives such as mandatory food labelling and schools’ limiting students’ access to sugary drinks.
Dietary habits
Acting On Our Goals
Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Food and agriculture are at the heart of civilization and prosperity. Achieving this Goal will require better access to food and the widespread promotion of sustainable agriculture. Globally, the proportion of undernourished people declined from 15 per cent in 2000-2002 to 11 per cent in 2014-2016. Furthermore, agricultural productivity increases would ensure food security for everyone only if access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food is secured. Our team aids in the achievement of Goal 2 by ensuring food security especially by safeguarding Animal Welfare.
Goal 3: "To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages."
The targets of SDG 3 cover and focus on various aspects of healthy life and healthy lifestyle. Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. One of the nodal purposes of our project is to contribute to the achievement of this goal. Reducing premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment, is one of the targets included in Goal 3. We propose a complete prevention toolkit that is able to Detect, Evaluate, and Ameliorate Gut Dysbiosis, thus contributing to the achievement of Goal 3. AMALTHEA can also be a helpful toolkit for resolving mental health issues and as a result ensuring well-being.
Goal 4: "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all."
Our introduction of Synthetic Biology in High School education addressed both students and teachers, and was executed in a way to achieve as many targets from the SDG4 as possible. We emphasized on the development of high-level cognitive and non-cognitive skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork and communication skills, on behalf of the students. Moreover, we aimed for the vocational guidance of our audience so that more of them are equipped well enough to make their future decisions in a responsible way.Finally, we have scheduled a presentation of our educational material to Έλιξ, a non-governmental organisation aiming to promote eductaion to migrants arriving in Greece, after we contacted and received a positive feedback with Angeliki Sifaki,Project Coordinator.
Goal 12: "Responsible Consumption and Production."
Achieving economic growth and sustainable development, requires urgent reduction of our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources. Our holistic approach to tackle the issue of GI disorders includes the adoption of a Mediterranean-based diet along with the responsible choice in food and products. This choice came to fulfill a nutritional pattern based on our country's resources, strengthening our local market and national economy and promoting food choices based on locality and seasonality, all according to The 100-Mile Diet concept. This philosophy is well integrated in the application we have developed, e-AMALTHEA, which provides dietary patterns that recommend customizable Mediterranean diet-based meals to the user for each day, so that they can follow the Mediterranean diet in a personalized manner. The inspiration and theoretical background for the development of this software utility were mainly provided by an event we hosted, by the name of “My Mediterranean Diet”, in which experts on the field of nutrition and cultural heritage provided insights on how we have co-evolved with what we eat, the importance of good cooking, and the responsible consumption that reflect upon locally based dietary habits. We also created “Hippocrates”, a children’s book about a little boy who faced a gut-related disease. Under the auspices of the theatrical workshop “Without Omega”, we collaborated with the theatrologists, Antonia Magou and Nadia Angelouli and through reading the children’s book “Hippocrates”, we introduced the kids to the Mediterranean diet.
Goal 17: "Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development."
According to Maltais, A. et al., (2018) , Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17 calls for strengthening the means of implementing the Agenda 2030. In particular, it calls for investing in the global partnership for realising sustainable development all over the world. Achieving the ambitions of this agenda will require, among others, deepening partnerships between government, the private sector and civil society, increasing international cooperation and improving coherence between policies and initiatives, both domestically and internationally. As such, meeting the targets and ambitions of SDG 17 is absolutely essential for successfully advancing the entire SDG agenda. The aforementioned conditions make SDG 17 a purpose our project couldn’t ignore.
Around June, the iGEM team of iGEM TAS_Taipei (Taiwan), introduced iGEMxSDGs challenge. iGEMxSDGs was a challenge that invited all teams of iGEM to match their project to the respective SDGs targeted by their teams. The goal was to raise awareness of the SDGs within the iGEM community and to the public. We happily accepted the nomination to participate and posted our goals on our social media platforms.
Afterwards in mid September, we participated at the SDGs Conference hosted by the TAS_Taipei team. We were given the opportunity to complete tasks in accordance with the SDG each team chose to tackle, aiding them in their effort to make their project even more sustainable. At the event, each team presented why it is important to target sustainability in every iGEM project and how we managed to complete the team SDG tasks, all in a great spirit of friendship and cooperation.
Also, we developed a partnership with team iGEM Aalto-Helsinki and team iGEM McMaster exchanging ideas and evolving our projects together.
Engaging With Stakeholders
Figure 1: Asteria Tsapadikou presenting project Amalthea in the Syniparxis Foroum(Left). The event planner (Right).
We also participated in “Syniparxis Forum 2021”, which is the first forum organized by the organization “Portal of Sustainable Development”. The end goal of the forum is to promote Sustainable Development Goals in Greece and to make a valuable discussion with experts from the field of science, government, and industry. We presented our project AMALTHEA in a panel discussion, with Bill Stenos, CEO of Solmeya and discussed the SDGs that we targeted.
Scouts of Greece
Recently, the Greek Scouts, loyal to their commitment to a world without inequality, with equal opportunities, respect for diversity and proud ambassadors of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, signed the Charter of Diversity. So, we thought to contact our local scouting network in Larissa, discuss what it takes to ensure by action sustainability and inform them how Synthetic Biology can become a promising tool to change the world for the better. Learn more on our Education Page
Figure 2:Animal welfare contributing in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Safeguarding Society via Animal Welfare
Limited progress on AntiMicrobial Resistance (AMR) result in a rise of poverty, pushing 24 million people into extreme poverty by 2030. This will affect the livestock production in low-income countries. If a high AMR scenario happens, there will be 7% of productivity loss by 2030. As animal protein has a vital role for women and children, there will be immediate influence in human’s health. Thus, many will need effective effective antibiotic in order to treat their diseases, while antimicrobial resistance puts patients at risk for life-threatening infections. So, AMR has a freat impact in the global economic growth as it can amount to losses of $3.4 trillion by 2030. Reduction on economic growth mostly to low-income countries will lead to further economic inequality between countries trespassing the sustainable goals that all countries of the world have set.
References
- Maltais, A., Weitz, N. and Persson, Å. (2018). SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals. A Review of Research Needs. Technical annex to the Formas report Forskning för Agenda 2030: Översikt av forskningsbehov och vägar framåt. Stockholm Environment Insitute, Stockholm. https://www.sei.org/publications/forskning-for-agenda-2030/
- THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development. (2015). Official UN Website. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/
- Tracking antimicrobial resistance in the Sustainable Development Goals – 2019 – ReAct. (2021). Retrieved 21 October 2021. https://www.reactgroup.org/news-and-views/news-and-opinions/year-2019/tracking-antimicrobial-resistance-in-the-sustainable-development-goals/?fbclid=IwAR1LafxqmDq9FHBH0TU_dpu25tjGEBe87tpHkYL_s2DitxXR2bSjUixKgzo
- Food and Agriculture Organization. (2018). Sustainable food systems: Concept and Framework. https://www.fao.org/3/ca2079en/CA2079EN.pdf