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Except Integrated sustainability.

Flourish in a changing world.

Multi-disciplinary consulting, innovation and development organization working on advanced sustainability projects around the globe.

Meat Sector Roadmap

Project > Towards an integrated circular sector

Oct 11, 2014

We developed a roadmap of the Dutch meat process sector, production and processing companies and their suppliers, together with DNV. The road map shows opportunities for optimal use of all energy and material flows in the product chain of chicken, pork and beef, and maps their sources. The maps bring insight to all stakeholders involved, and enables decisions on improving entire sections of the production chain at once.

Insights

Within the product chain of cattle farms the highest negative impacts on natural resources is caused by decentralized cooling and freezing, and meat exceeding the expiration date. Freezing is energy intensive and decentralized cooling is often done using inefficient refrigerators.

In addition, spoilage of food in households is relatively high. These products have a high embodied energy and water values, in addition to many other environmental impacts. To reduce the amount of produce and thereby improve the performance of the meat sector, we propose several innovative cooling methods.

Mapping the products flows and the need for natural resources enables the sector to pinpoint actions that have the largest overall impact. Apart from quantifying the impact of each measure it also puts each action in perspective of the bigger picture and demonstrates the relations within the supply chain.

This project was made possible with the participation of Nepluvi, VNV, COV, AKSV and the KNS.

Media & Downloads

Reference Projects

Polydome

High Performance Sustainable Polyculture Agriculture

Polydome is a revolutionary approach to greenhouse agriculture that offers the possibility of commercial scale, net-zero-impact food production. The Polydome system strategically interweaves a wide variety of crops and animals, taking advantage of every inch of the greenhouse while eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Polydome is an answer to a part of the world food crisis. With its high yields (60 – 90 kg per square meter), and diverse outputs (over 50 crops, two mushroom varieties, chickens, eggs, fish, and honey), even a small Polydome system can sustainably provide a varied food supply for a large population. Scalable. Profitable.

Polydome has been extensively researched by Except and over 12 partners in the industry. Concept overview and technical details are published in a free open source book, downloadable below.

DNV Waste Water Chains

Vision for Dutch Waste Water 2030

This project is a visual exploration of the Dutch waste water sector in 2030. It takes a closer look at the role of waste water processing facilities for the provision of clean water, renewable energy, and valuable material inputs for society of the future.

The vision for 2030 concerns the role of waste water management in four major parts of society: the built environment, agriculture, industry, and natural lands.

Sustainable Water Innovation Game

A social cardgame to connect stakeholders in a fun setting

SWIG is a social cardgame with a sustainable wastewater processing theme. Players get to know each other, learn from each other, and discover as a group to invest in the opportunities that make wastewater processing more sustainable.

We developed the game mechanics in close collaboration with Det Norske Veritas (DNV) as part of their Wastewater Chain Roadmap (Routekaart Afvalwaterketen). The game is played with much enthousiasm in DNV's workshops today.

Carpet sector roadmap

Mapping the carpet sector towards 2030

Together with MODINT and DNV we mapped the Dutch carpet sector and developed a road map to a circular carpet industry in 2030. We used system mapping and visualization techniques to bring at-a-glance insight to the stakeholder meetings. With this insight we plotted interventions to transition the industry towards a circular and bio-based industry within two decades.