Introduction

Nowadays, the metaverse is often viewed as a potential arena for sustainability, representing a new interface between digital transformation and sustainable consumption, but there are currently few studies that explore specific sustainability challenges and possible solutions in the metaverse (De Giovanni, 2023). The current review defines the sustainability of the metaverse as the extent to which it addresses economic, environmental, and social issues, with a focus on environmentally sustainable food consumption in a virtual universe scenario. So, the metaverse is a way of connecting humans to the Internet and to other humans, going beyond the concepts of virtual and augmented reality. Connected people are part of the physical world, but they interact with virtual avatars and things. Therefore, the metaverse is a virtual world, mostly still hypothetical, which can be accessed by a particular virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology. The idea is to create a sort of higher-level Internet, superimposed on the physical world. People connected to the metaverse are part of the physical world, but they can see and interact with things that others do not see, because they belong to a virtual world (Park et al., 2021; Van der Merwe, 2021).

Because it is still just an idea with few or partial concrete applications, there is not a single definition of the metaverse that everyone agrees on. Instead of using a computer, in the metaverse, it would be enough to use a headset (or a viewer) to enter a virtual world that connects all kinds of digital environments. According to the study The Corporate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse, the metaverse will be worth up to 400 billion dollars already within the next 3 years.

Certainly, it can be said to be a convergence of our physical and digital lives. It is our digital lifestyles, which we’ve lived on the phone or computer, slowly catching up with our physical lives. The metaverse is enabled by a lot of different technologies, like AR and VR, which are what most people tend to think about, they are not the only entry points though. There is also blockchain (which is a large component), 5G, edge computing, and many other technologies. Hence, the metaverse is also about our identity and digital ownership. It is a new extension of human creativity that is continually evolving (Deterding et al., 2011; Kim et al., 2018).

Another subject of attention is the growth of the metaverse market expected for the next few years: Boston Consulting Group estimates a value between 250 and 400 billion dollars by 2025. The market is mainly composed of 4 elements: the economy of virtual assets, whereby an increasing number of virtual assets will be created by individuals and traded between users and businesses (the value of transactions for virtual assets, given their volatility, is projected to be between $150 and $300 billion by 2025); the nearly $50 billion augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR/VR/MR) hardware and software market to be evenly split between consumer and enterprise buyers by 2025, a testament to the productivity gains from by the increase in AR/VR; finally, from the network and cloud infrastructure, and from information technology and communication infrastructures (Wang et al., 2022).

The development and widespread adoption of the metaverse may result in various adverse environmental effects, such as increased energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. However, through effective regulations and adopting sustainable practices, it is possible to mitigate these negative effects and promote the creation of an ecologically sustainable metaverse in the long run (Jauhiainen et al., 2023). Our study aims to investigate the possible impacts of the widespread implementation of the metaverse on environmental sustainability, trying to understand what is the impact of the metaverse on environmental well-being, both in terms of potential negative impacts and possible benefits, and what are the viable methods or approaches that can be used to ensure the sustained longevity and resilience of the metaverse.

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to take a glance at development possibilities offered by the metaverse in the food sector in compliance with sustainability, considering the first case of studies worldwide. From the study, it is clear that the metaverse is definitely a very particular innovation capable of opening up new and sustainable economic opportunities for companies in the food industry and it is already possible to recognize the strategic potential of virtual universes.

Theoretical Framework

Technology and Economics

In fact, considering a more marketing-oriented point of view, it can be said that we will soon see two important phases. First, we will observe more brands, more investments, more mergers and acquisitions, and more users in all things 3D and real-time rendering. These are trends that have been going on for several decades and there is no reason to believe that the amount of time spent online, the number of smartphones in use, and the criticality of digital to our economy will anytime reverse (Huotari & Hamari, 2017). At the same time, we should expect backlash to the metaverse as a theme, as an investment case, and as a shareholder priority, because companies, of course, have to invest a lot before revenue and products arrive (Eppmann et al., 2018; Mukhtar et al., 2020).

In a completely different way from current virtual reality, which is mainly used for games, this new virtual world could be used for practically anything: from work to play activities, through a surrogate person who meets other people and has interactions with other economic subjects. All this thanks to a 3D avatar, a digital representation of oneself (Kim, 2015; Song, 2021). The concept of metaverse, however, is not new: the term was coined by writer Neal Stephenson in 1992, in his science fiction novel The Snow Crash, set in a near future where the virtual world and the physical world are inextricably interconnected.

So, from a strategic point of view, companies must be ready to invest more and more in AR and VR technologies that offer the ability to control their hardware platform. This concept somehow recalls the NFT one (Non-Fungible Token), linked to the blockchain, which in the last year has conquered the art world, with its certificates of possession of non-tangible assets. So, in this case, technological progress is basically seen as something to circumvent reality (Duan et al., 2021; Smart et al., 2007). The picture of venture capital investments in the metaverse is well captured in PitchBook’s recent “Vertical Snapshot: The Metaverse” report. In the first half of 2022, the study surveyed over 12,000 investors and nearly 10,000 deals, for a total raised of 115.5 billion dollars. The largest share of investment goes to North America, followed by Asia, with Europe in third place.

It is known that the metaverse is at the heart of Accenture’s Technology Vision, the annual study of the leading global professional services firm, providing a broad range of services and solutions across strategy, consulting, digital, technology, and operations: it aims to identify the most important technological trends that will characterize the business in the coming years, and which will represent the element of disruption in the technological development of companies. The new report says the “metaverse continuum,” made up of digitally augmented worlds, realities, and business models, is redefining how the world operates and interacts. In the interplay of technology and experience that reshapes business, companies are already moving towards a new way of doing business, as technologies including extended reality, blockchain, digital twins, and edge computing are converging to reshape the experiences of humans. Accenture surveyed more than 4600 business and technology leaders across 23 industries in 35 countries; 71% of executives believe the metaverse will positively impact their organization and 42% believe it will be game-changing or transformative. However, not everyone is convinced of the validity, effectiveness, feasibility, and safety of a metaverse world, especially due to people’s habit of relating physically: therefore, instead of in everyday life, VR and AR have established themselves more in the industry (Park & Kim, 2021; Guinote & Kim, 2020; Dicheva et al., 2015).

Hence, the metaverse is something that goes beyond a simple, evolved, and sophisticated form of video game. While ideas about what it could be are many and varied, most have human and social interaction at their core—from VR meeting apps to social spaces using avatar systems. it is now clear that we are witnessing the birth of “metaverse marketing” (Jia et al., 2017; Majuri et al., 2021; Sahronih et al., 2019).

In this context, there is a great deal of discussion about the metaverse. It is amazing how quickly something gets picked up and how people run with things. This is something that few were mentioning even a few times ago. Now, it is the battle cry that is being tossed around. It needs to realize the metaverse is going to be developed. This is something that is going to be a part of humanity’s future, not really immediately. In other words, this is going to be a long process, nevertheless, that does not stop people from touting the idea. Technology seems to have hype cycles. A large part of this can be attributed to the media although they are not the sole instigators of it. It is possible to see many entities involved, all who promote ideas before their time. In particular, the technology hype cycle is a concept that was put forth by Gartner™ (Fig. 1) Gartner.com (2022).

Fig. 1
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Source: our elaboration on Gartner.com

The metaverse hype.

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The idea is that most technology fits onto the chart somewhere. There are a few that are able to avoid this. The smartphone went from being introduced to large-scale success in a short period of time. There was little build-up and the pace of adoption was so quick that it avoided the second and third phases. Nonetheless, most are not able to do that. With how things are going, we are likely to see the metaverse idea also suffer the fate this chart outlines. We know things are getting out of hand when people are starting to discuss how to invest in technology. Of course, the time factor is essential.

Metaverse-Environmental Sustainability-Food Nexus

Nowadays metaverse and web 3.0, thanks to their characteristics, generate sustainable outcomes because they are decentralized, consensus-based, and immutable. Thanks to decentralization, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts, platforms eliminate intermediaries thus avoiding the centralization of power and reducing costs. Furthermore, by reinforcing reliability and traceability, the highest level of governance is guaranteed, reducing the risk of corruption and manipulation. The metaverse can and will host a whole range of activities that currently weigh on global warming, and emissions, such as concerts, smart working, or conferences. However, considering the still embryonic state of the works, defining the future impact of the metaverse on the environment is not at all simple. Observing the different points of view on the subject, however, the metaphor of promises and bets resonates again, perhaps even more glaringly (Kottler et al., 2021; Ellis, 2010; Boyd & Ellison, 2008).

From an ecological point of view, the metaverse’s environmental promises are always centered around some sort of easing the impact of human life on Earth’s ecosystem. This virtual world of infinite possibilities will, in fact, be able to host a whole series of activities that currently weigh on global warming, emissions, and the preservation of flora and fauna. People and companies will be increasingly close and connected without having to move and, inevitably, this will have a positive impact in terms of a reduced environmental cost in the area of public and private transport. Furthermore, in terms of data storage, the migration to the Cloud that will be encouraged by the adoption of the metaverse could put an end to numerous physical data centers and the consumption connected to them. An interesting perspective, considering that the major cloud technology providers are moving towards carbon-free or carbon-negative. One last interesting positive that the metaverse could have for our planet is to serve as a laboratory with high potential for earth and climate sciences. By creating a digital twin of the planet by satellite data and combining these models with the sophisticated intelligence of the metaverse, it will in fact be possible to develop and test more effective solutions to combat climate change in the long term (Avgitidou, 2003; Gaggioli, 2017; PRWeb, 2021).

So, of course that's not up for debate that the technology of the metaverse and NFTs will have to undergo incredible development before they can host the great initiatives to save the planet that we have just talked about. It will take a long time and the polluting processes will continue for a long time before the artificial intelligence models are refined enough to allow important results to be obtained from an environmental point of view. Furthermore, during this development, physical databases will continue to exist, function, pollute, and require incredible amounts of energy. At the same time, ancillary industries such as those producing the VAMR systems that will allow us to access the metaverse will undergo a surge, adding further stress to the ecosystem. Consequently, here we find another great bet of the metaverse: that is, the environmental effort required by its development is compensated in time by the computational opportunities offered (D’Amore et al., 2022; Rothkopf, 2012). In Fig. 2, it is possible to synthetize the relationship food-sustainability-metaverse and some consequent opportunities.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Source: our elaboration on Gartner.com

Food brands, metaverse and sustainable technologies.

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At this moment, the metaverse is in full development and is being built at a time when global warming is among the world’s most pressing issues (Zhou et al., 2019). So, all technological development activities must be environmentally mindful. Therefore, metaverse sustainability represents a composite problem currently being investigated and debated. When discussing sustainability, we need to approach the subject from three perspectives: economic, social, and environmental (Kuhlman & Farrington, 2010). The scientific evidence collected so far indicates that the metaverse will impact sustainability, influence the environment, have economic implications, and also affect the social sphere. There are several factors that the creators of this brand-new medium should consider to minimize its detrimental influence on the environment. Many new electronic devices, such as virtual reality glasses and haptic gloves, are required to enter the metaverse (Dwivedi et al., 2022), and a huge quantity of this equipment must be manufactured. To build devices that support metaverse technology, it is necessary to use rare materials and enormous quantities of plastic, which pose an environmental risk. Due to increasing CO2 levels, the design and use of electronic equipment may impact climate change (Siitonen et al., 2010). It takes energy to manufacture, transport, and distribute the equipment. In addition, the growth of Internet technology and applications is related to a rise in electrical power usage (Ren et al., 2021). In addition to developing the technology, accessing it by users could require a large amount of energy and therefore generate significant carbon emissions. It would require storing massive amounts of data and constructing new data centers (Shaikh et al., 2020). Another issue closely related to the development of Web 3.0 and the metaverse is e-waste, an environmental problem, especially in the current social environment. The growing demand for the latest technology has led to a significant increase in e-waste (Tansel, 2017). Some researchers see e-waste as a significant risk to the environment because, in many countries, waste is thrown away haphazardly, and far too little is recycled. If not properly managed, this waste can pose a major risk to human or animal health and pollute the environment (Preetam et al., 2023). The metaverse could also have positive effects on the environment, and one of these aspects is related to the reduction of real-world travel due to the opportunities for organizing business meetings in the new environment. In addition, the metaverse could encourage remote working, limiting pollution’s effects (Caulfield & Charly, 2022). Carbon emissions associated with transportation (Xie et al., 2017) and those associated with maintaining an office building could be reduced due to the metaverse. All this could contribute to improving air quality.

Methodology: Business Cases

Obviously evaluating the immediate impact and the return—both in terms of image and economics—that brought about the advent of the metaverse in agri-food industry is complex, both due to the different nature of the food-tasting experience and due to the difficulty in making the experiences linked to one’s own world usable, such as tastings that require a particular one. Despite these difficulties, some projects have been born that are trying to imagine possible developments of food in the virtual world.

McDonald’s is no stranger to the metaverse: for Chinese New Year, he collaborated with stylist Humberto Leon on a digital event titled “McDonald’s Hall of Zodiacs: Humberto Leon’s 2022 Lunar New Year.” The event included an art gallery that exhibited the artist’s reinterpretations of the 12 animals in the lunar cycle. In addition to the gallery, users had the opportunity to have their horoscope read based on their birth year and the Chinese zodiac animal. To date, the fast-food giant has already registered eleven trademarks and patents to officially enter the new digital world. The Big M said it wants to create virtual restaurants with food and drink inspired by their real counterparts. Finally, the “Meta-McCafè” would become a real place of entertainment, where virtual online concerts would be organized.

A great way to start tapping into the potential of the metaverse comes from Taco Bell. This company has announced the sale of NFTs for charity: more precisely, it has created virtual tacos, which, if purchased, entitled you to a $500 gift card to spend in any restaurant in the chain. The total proceeds were then donated to the non-profit organization Live Más Scholarship.

Pizza Hut offered loyal customers a new scanned pizza-themed image every week. Considering the pizza’s international role (one of the most consumed foods around the world), Pizza Hut seems to have reached the hearts of its audience, considering that the NFTs released quickly sold out.

Chipotle, an American chain specializing in burritos and tacos, was instead the first to create an event on the Roblox platform: for Halloween, the “Chipotle Boorito Maze” was invented, a virtual space in which users could dress up their own themed avatars spooky and collect ingredients to build your own burrito.

In large-scale retail trade, the European Carrefour bought a plot of land equivalent to 36 hectares in the virtual world of the video game Sandbox. Created by the French studio Pixowl, Sandbox allows individuals and companies to become landowners and use them as they please. According to data from the OpenSea platform, the transaction cost the group 120 units of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, just under 300,000 euros. The digital transformation director of Carrefour said that events or product launches could be organized on this virtual territory (the same choice was made by Warner Music and Coca-Cola, the latter has even created a digital collection of its most iconic products).

The US retail giant Walmart filed recently with the US Patent and Trademark Office, several new trademarks that would indicate its intention to manufacture and sell virtual goods, including electronics, home decorations, toys, sporting goods, and personal care products.

The first Italian companies to enter the metaverse deserve a special mention, due to the great international renown of Made in Italy food excellence. A few months ago, the Loft Italy company launched an online platform that allows you to combine real and virtual to enjoy food and wine experiences in a new way: it is a digital service platform that offers the possibility of seeing in virtual reality and buying experiences—such as tastings of cheeses or visits to cellars—and food products. This is possible thanks to its Virtual store, accessible via a virtual reality headset. The virtual world does not want to replace reality, but rather to give a realistic and engaging taste of what can be experienced directly. In the same way, it is possible to see the products of a series of affiliated companies, generally the same ones where it is possible to make visits or tastings, but also to find information on the production processes and traditions linked to the various products. In the Virtual store, of course, you can also buy these products and receive them at home, thanks to the delivery service, active throughout Europe. In practice, the link allows you to connect, via the Internet, to the Virtual store site and, if you have a virtual reality viewer, “enter” the store and take advantage of the experiences offered. Those who do not have a viewer will find it available in the affiliated structures. As far as the response is concerned, the participating structures, in a few months, have increased from about thirty to a hundred, while users have been around 2000.

LAB is a project of the San Daniele Ham Consortium that wants to bring consumers into their own world using immersive technology. The idea is to innovate the narration of its history and its production projects to bring enthusiasts closer to the company’s values, all by exploiting the tools made available by the metaverse. To do this, a collaboration was born with TechStar, another company that develops solutions and projects with augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies. The project is built around a digital laboratory, through which users can visit a maturing hall and discover in detail the processes that lead to the production of Prosciutto San Daniele DOP. After entering the virtual world, the user is introduced to an environment that reproduces the spaces of a ham factory and, through his avatar, can experience a series of interactive experiences such as videos and slides. The scenario is constantly developing and will be expanded further as time goes by.

OneRare was designed to merge food, games, and NFTs into one ecosystem. Since its launch, it has become very popular and has created an active community of enthusiasts who want to experience food in a whole new dimension. The Foodverse project aims to promote food as universal common ground through gimmicks such as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and online games in an immersive virtual world. Users are also involved thanks to the organization of a series of activities that see chefs as protagonists. OneRare’s ambition is to create a food blockchain ecosystem that takes the form of a multiplayer game where users interact with producers, effectively redefining the dynamics of the agri-food sector—at least in the metaverse—by eliminating intermediaries and distributors.

In the end, Mediterranean Diet 4.0 is a project that was born with the aim of creating interaction between agritech and rural communities, giving them access to digital innovation tools. In this project, the metaverse is used to preserve the memory of the trades and protect the biodiversity of Southern Italy against agro-food counterfeiting: the user can know and experience firsthand the path of quality productions—those that identify the Mediterranean Diet in the national park of Cilento, mapped and then recorded in virtual reality—from the field to the table. Within the experience, one encounters these realities both through narrative and technical aspects, as in the case of the blockchain process, used to give objective certifications of processes along the entire supply chain. The creator of the project is the Rural Hack laboratory, whose mission is to understand how to adapt 4.0 technologies to agricultural production. In addition to the experience in virtual reality, Mediterranean Diet 4.0 puts users in contact with quality products and invites and promotes direct experience in the territories.

Discussion

It is clear that the metaverse will have multiple utilities (Allam et al., 2022; Shen et al., 2021), and it could completely change the way to interact and communicate at this time when information is transmitted at an astonishing speed (Davian, 2017; Durmaz & Polat, 2020). Moreover, it can provide solutions to the labor crisis in certain geographical areas without generating problems related to overpopulation, transportation, integration, etc. (Porumbescu, 2022). Hence, technology is booming, and artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and other emerging tools cannot be deterred. At the same time, concerns about sustainability have spread, and there has been a strong focus on environmental protection (Hackl et al., 2022). It is therefore highly important that all these digital innovations be based on sustainability (Covino & Boccia, 2016; Zhao & Qian, 2023). The metaverse, like any digital technology, can make its mark on the environment, and the impact can be major if action is not taken at the right time. For example, major companies developing the metaverse (Gadekallu et al., 2022; Badîrceaet al., 2022; Yu & Yu, 2022) have announced that they are actively engaged in developing sustainable technologies, optimizing the hardware and software used to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, as well as using solar or other renewable energy sources (Choi et al., 2022; Rambe & Khaola, 2023). All these sustainable policies can have significant implications for reducing negative environmental impacts (Suanpang et al., 2022). At the same time, much depends on government policies and the role of authorities in developing and managing the metaverse (Rosenberg, 2022). In addition, a possible international agreement in this respect could limit the negative environmental impact (Covino & Boccia, 2014; Zhang and Chen, 2023).

As seen before, it is possible to also identify several environmental benefits of the metaverse. Remote working and meetings in the metaverse could reduce emissions. In addition, the educational aspect should also be considered, which we shall address as a further research direction. Virtual applications can be developed to educate people about the impact of human actions on the environment. Furthermore, platforms can be built in the metaverse through which users can learn about sustainability, thus encouraging sustainable consumption patterns. Hence, it was highlighted a comprehensive analysis of the sustainability challenges and opportunities associated with the development and adoption of the metaverse, identifying several key areas that require attention and solutions to ensure the sustainable and beneficial evolution of the metaverse (Fig. 3). The case studies underline that optimizing energy consumption, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and proper electronic waste management are crucial aspects of the metaverse’s sustainability. Obviously, in this scenario, the importance of social responsibility, transparency, and collaboration among stakeholders in developing common standards and regulations to address the environmental issues associated with the metaverse is of fundamental importance.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Source: our elaboration on Gartner.com

Opportunities and risks of the metaverse.

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Conclusions

The present study has limitations related to the timing, when the metaverse is still in its infancy. This will require much more dedicated empirical research that goes beyond merely describing the metaverse for a more sustainable world and analyze the substantive impact the metaverse has on making sustainability a reality. As seen before, the most innovative companies in the sector have therefore hastened to approach this world understood as an evolution towards a more engaging 3D web, viewable from VR/AR devices but also through traditional devices. In the metaverse, people could don headsets and find themselves in shared virtual spaces, connecting to “verses” where they will work, train, shop, and make friends. Already millions of individuals are entering the existing metaverses every day, and companies are discovering new markets and new sources of income: retail strategies, solutions, and spaces must be rethought from this innovative point of view. The recent pandemic, rather than being the stumbling block in the way of so much development, has instead been a significant driver in making the metaverse real. The push towards social distancing and virtual connection the pandemic forced upon the global populace may have seen declining numbers in many industries, but in digital technologies the reverse holds true and the metaverse, as a product of digitalization, has only benefited.

The metaverse aims to offer an orderly and rationalized version of the world, which is chaotic by nature. We are still in the early stages; the evolution of the metaverse will be contested among the tech giants in the next decade, or maybe even longer. But today, it is difficult to predict its developments and to understand how much the possible preference of people for physical reality over virtual reality will affect its concrete applications.

Moreover, the amount of time and effort invested in these blockchain-powered metaverse environments and the construction of virtual identities to inhabit them—running the gamut of online social networks, gaming, commerce, blogs, or otherwise—lends credence to the relative importance of these environments in comparison to real-life interactions. Currently, the only hope is that large investments and metaverse developments put people ahead of profit and, at the same time, keep the environment in mind. Because there is no metaverse if there is no planet or the energy to sustain it. It will be impossible to develop a virtual world if the future of the real one is not included in the equation.