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Contextualizing Responsibilit(ies) in Food Waste Governance

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Responsibility in Environmental Governance

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Abstract

This chapter connects the empirical findings on reoccurring patterns of responsibility in food waste governance to broader social and political contexts. The aim is to account for the functions these understandings and meanings of responsibility fulfill within food waste governance. The chapter discusses in turn the most dominant links in the model: (1) sharing, best practices, and cooperation, (2) behaviour change and self-optimization, and (3) value attribution and valorization. It does so by drawing on the theoretical frameworks discussed in earlier chapters but also utilizes current scholarship that is concerned with the specificities of the governance problems the analysis of responsibility has brought to the fore.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    However, the model of the waste hierarchy has to be viewed critically, since its application can lead to a general legitimization of waste, neglecting questions of whether current quantities of food are even necessary, or if they are indeed unavoidable (Hultman & Corvellec, 2012). Especially within the current discourse of expanding the Circular Economy in the European context and on national levels (DEFRA, 2018; EC, 2015), a broad imagination of ‘perfect’ economic recovery and valorization is spurred that encourages business actors to see every form of waste as a resource (Gregson et al., 2015).

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    Tobias Gumbert

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Gumbert, T. (2022). Contextualizing Responsibilit(ies) in Food Waste Governance. In: Responsibility in Environmental Governance. Environmental Politics and Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13729-7_8

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