=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper53
|storemode=property
|title=Sustainability Empowerment and Lifestyles: ICTs for New Food Behavioral Models
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper53.pdf
|volume=Vol-1498
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/CesarettiAMH15
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==Sustainability Empowerment and Lifestyles: ICTs for New Food Behavioral Models==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1498/HAICTA_2015_paper53.pdf
Sustainability Empowerment and Lifestyles: ICTs for
New Food Behavioral Models1
Gian Paolo Cesaretti1, Maria Carmen de Angelis2, Rosa Misso3, Safwat H Shakir
Hanna4
1
Simone Cesaretti Foundation, Italy, e-mail: presidente@fondazionesimonecesaretti.it
2
Simone Cesaretti Foundation, Italy, e-mail: dottmarideangelis@gmail.com
3
Department of Economics and Law Studies, University of Naples “Parthenope”, Italy,
misso@uniparthenope.it
4
Texas Gulf Coast Environmental (TEXGED) Data, Prairie View A&M University – USA,
safwat_shakir@yahoo.com
Abstract. Recognizing the important role that modern Information and
Communication Technologies (ICts), and in particular the Internet, can play in
determining the so-called “Sustainability Empowerment” (“the ability to make
the Right to Sustainability a constitutive principle of a new global society
where well-being and its sustainability, in time and space, constitute its
fundamental strategic goal”), the present paper highlights a web project that
takes for example the short supply chain model as a reference to a sustainable
food lifestyle. This with the purpose of highlighting the importance to guide
the visitors to new patterns of food behavior most functional to the
maintenance in time and space of a new well-being paradigm.
Keywords: Sustainability of well-being; Shared Social Responsibility; ICTs;
Food behavior; Lifestyle; Short supply chain.
1 Introduction
The globalization of the markets without a well-defined legal guidance, capable of
overriding its rules and rights, surely it takes far away from the threshold of a
sustainable well-being and universally recognized. The current world backdrop isn’t
comforting. The inequalities, that segment the planet separate it on parameters
primarily based on mercantile vision. All this hinders the achievement of
Sustainability Empowerment that, as stated by Cesaretti (2014) refers to the “the
ability to make the Right to Sustainability a constitutive principle of a new global
1
The work was carried out within the framework of the "New Orto Chain", a project
coordinated by prof. Gian Paolo Cesaretti and done in partnership between the research
institutions Di.SEG - Parthenope University and Simone Cesaretti Foundation and the OP
businesses TerraOrti, F.lli Esposito and Azienda Agricola La Morella. The project has
received funding from the measure 124 of the PRS 2007-2013 of the Campania Region.
444
society where well-being and its sustainability, in time and space, constitute its
fundamental strategic goal”.
This preliminary remarks helps to understand why the current well-being
paradigm, mainly oriented towards a mercantile approach is not designed to achieve
the aim of Sustainability Empowerment. At this point it becomes fundamental a
change of the paradigm of Dominant Well-being, in favour of a model based on the
concept of Integrated Universal Well-being. If this would happen for consumers
would result new lifestyles functional to the new paradigm.
This cannot be separated from the context in which all stakeholders, including
consumers, move and compare themselves. In this regard, it is introduced the concept
of Sustainability Oriented Territories where it is actually applied the model of
Shared Social Responsibility. In these territories all stakeholders move responsibly,
parameterizing their behavioral models to sustainable criteria. Within a Shared Social
Responsibility model the ICTs play a crucial role, because they can be promoter of
lifestyles compatible with creation, but especially with the maintenance in time and
space, of the conditions of individual and collective well-being.
In particular, the starting point of this work is to recognize the unquestionable
ability of ICTs, especially of Internet, to promote behavioral patterns and lifestyles
more compatible with the objectives of Sustainability Empowerment by providing
information that allows users to have an immediate idea of the possible alternative
compared to dominant behaviors.
In this regard, the work serves as an example the web project developed by
Simone Cesaretti Foundation named “The Portal of Sustainability”: a free tool aimed
at the promotion of a Culture of Well-being Sustainability. The portal, built around
the areas of Well-being, in particular, includes a section dedicated to food by which
are disseminated and promoted lifestyles compatible with what has been described as
Food for Sustainability and not Just Food. In particular, in that section, values were
promoted under the concept of short supply chain, as value system for eating patterns
that are compatible with the goal of Sustainability Empowerment.
2 Sustainability Empowerment and Lifestyles
The current global society, aimed essentially at a mercantile approach, does not
allow applying a Sustainability Empowerment Strategy (Cesaretti, 2014; Borrelli et
al., 2013). One of the founding elements of the concept of sustainable well-being lies
in a condition of global equity within and between generations.
In this sense, the overcoming of global inequality is a crucial prerequisite to
achieve the aforementioned Sustainability Empowerment. Sustainability of well-
being, understood as a right able to ensure its applicability on a planetary scale, in
fact, does not yet exist. Imbalances, deep-seated in global society, heavily involved
in the System, are those that hinder the process of overcoming inequalities. From this
“Global Society System” derives a Well-being Paradigm totally unbalanced compared
to its visions and aims. Not surprisingly the current reference model does not respond
to the approach of universal well-being but rather to segmented approaches of well-
being, especially to a mercantile vision. Putting sustainability at the heart of a new
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global society project, it determines the move from segmented approaches to well-
being to a one so to tell which is integrated with every single sustainable aspect of
multiple segmented approaches.
Compared to it the result would be that, by changing the current paradigm of well-
being according to criteria of sustainability, the “Global Society System” can finally
find its way around new “sustainable” parameters, able to establish a new right: the
“Right to Sustainability” (Cesaretti et al., 2015).
From this, in the name of a change on a global scale, we would have new
behavioral models themselves voted for individual and collective well-being,
worldwide sustainable. The symbiotic relationship between an Integrated Well-being
Paradigm and new behavioral models related to it, assumes a responsible behavior by
all stakeholders of the territorial systems. In this sense, starting from a more micro
reality which is the territory, until another more macros which is the Planet System,
all stakeholders must take responsible behavior. The business world, policymakers,
the media, the information play a crucial role. Each stakeholder, in the context of a
Shared Social Responsibility model, should, by adopting a responsible attitude, take
consistent positions with a new model of Well-being Sustainability (Borrelli et al.,
2013; Blasi et al., 2008; Van der Ploeg, 2006).
In this perspective, if among the various stakeholders of a territory we focus on
consumer because it is “the subject that, in aggregate perspective, creates the offer”,
you can instantly understand how its behaviors and lifestyles can be functional to
Sustainability Empowerment. Consumers, in fact, according to our own lifestyle can
make daily choices, becoming a critical factor for the change of the model of “Well-
being offer” in a territory.
3 Shared Social Responsibility
The relationship between Sustainability Empowerment and its functional
behavioral patterns should be analyzed within a Shared Social Responsibility model.
The methodological analysis made here cannot be separated from the interconnection
of the two concepts. Another important factor shifts the debate, integrating it in the
territories, starting with the assumption that these last are privileged observatories to
look at the actual applicability of certain paradigms of well-being and not only the
place where the stakeholders physically move.
Starting then from the territory as fabric within which stakeholders daily perform
more or less responsible actions, taking certain behavioral patterns, the analysis
should be carried out taking into account the degree of responsibility that drives these
behaviors, allowing or not an approach to Sustainable Well-being.
The business world, policies, support sectors, the media and consumers with their
lifestyles, should not only act, but mainly deal in the context of a model of shared
social responsibility.
In particular, the consumers’ lifestyles changing that, as it has been previously
stated, is function of a certain well-being paradigm, is possible only in view of a real
application of the model of Shared Social Responsibility (Hertwich, 2005; Misso et
al., 2013). In fact, this can only happen if all the stakeholders of the territorial
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systems point simultaneously towards the goal of Sustainability Empowerment. How
can they do it? In this regard it is very important the role of the media that should
reset their information strategies looking to a new paradigm of Universal Well-being.
4 Social responsibility and Media
The current model of globalization imposes certain parameters to the Media from
which you can hardly move. The current model of global governance largely
influences information and communication that, today more than ever, comes
strongly influenced to the consumers.
Certainly freedom of expression, understood as the ability to tell without filters, in
some cases without retaliation, does not belong to that kind of information service
offered by the most common media. This introduction is used to move the focus of
certain info processes based not so much on the amount of provided service, but
rather to the quality of it that strongly affects the aforementioned “freedom”. To
achieve Sustainability Empowerment, in a logic of social responsibility, information
is more than ever a lever for change. Responsible communication, of which a certain
type of information is the direct result, must be carried out in respect of all
stakeholders through a service that is both educational as well as informative.
We need a new independent media who can contact their local stakeholders, a
communication able to educate to new behavioral models compatible with the well-
being and its sustainability. The strength of a so well thought communication should,
find expression in the adoption by all stakeholders of those behavioral models related
to sustainable attitudes.
In this sense, the function carriers to this type of communication that could be
defined as independent are undoubtedly those relating to the “free” world of ICTs,
especially the Internet. At this point it is important to understand how through the
Internet it is possible to educate to the sustainability of well-being by promoting the
principles of new lifestyles, bringing consumers to them, and making sure that they
will later come to constitute the new “demand for sustainability”.
5 Internet and new Lifestyles for a Universal Right to Well-being
Sustainability
Globalization has deeply changed the sensory perception, revolutionizing the
spatial-temporal standard criteria for all inhabitants of the planet.
The advantages of the so-called “global village” (Mac Luan) reside in the
immediacy of information that knows no boundaries. The disadvantages are
identified with the centralization of an information flow strongly mediated by the
global governance. Hence, it follows that the traditional mass media such as
newspapers, radio and television stations are essentially governed by those that hold
power. Except for a few networks that are more sensitive to social issues and to the
447
environment one, the vast majority of the products packed by the standard
information are affected by this pressure.
Quite different is the case of ICTs, especially the Internet, which have completely
revolutionized the way we communicate by giving not mediated information. The
power of ICTs and of the “liberty” of these instruments, also involves the interests of
the big powers that constantly rely on the “immediacy” of Social networks. Internet
(and all its extensions) is the main tool of global communication, so it responds
perfectly to the type of support that suits the paradigm shift. For its “free” nature it is
the absolute best way to communicate to consumers the importance of new lifestyles
(Andreopoulou et al, 2014). Coming directly to consumers, the produced information
flow is not affected, lending itself perfectly to the packaging of “pure” contents.
The network is the tool that most lends itself to the implementation of a Bottom
Up strategy: an integrated communication able to fully express all the necessity of
Sustainability Empowerment, it must necessarily adopt instruments capable to tell
and to intervene on a reality more compatible with the well-being.
In other words, the Internet is actually that famous fourth estate, acting as a
forerunner to a communication able to impact significantly and responsibly on the
users’ way of life.
5.1 Internet and Well-Being Sustainability: “The Portal of Sustainability”, a
Case Study
The Simone Cesaretti Foundation, adhering to the notion that the Internet is the
right tool to communicate a certain paradigm of sustainable well-being, has designed
and put on line “The Portal of Sustainability” (www.portaledellasostenibilita.it): a
website with the aim of promoting the culture of Well-being Sustainability.
Adopting the model of Shared Social Responsibility, the portal aims to contribute
to the dissemination and implementation of lifestyles compatible with a functional
integrated well-being paradigm to Sustainability Empowerment.
Assuming that all stakeholders often do not have the tools, resources and
information to implement independently certain behavioral models compatible with
sustainability of well-being, the portal stands as vehicle construction, dissemination
and promotion of responsible guidelines related to the Sustainability Empowerment.
Of course this cannot happen if the stakeholders are not contextualized in a
Sustainability Oriented Territory — a place where the model of Shared Social
Responsibility is really applied.
In particular, the consumer may not adapt his lifestyle to sustainability criteria
without the support of a territory and of a context already, in itself, sustainable. The
same consumer will hardly be able to parameterize his lifestyle on the principle of
Sustainability Empowerment if the communication does not intervene to direct his
sustainability choices. From this point of view, “The Portal of Sustainability”
represents a web interface with an offer of contents suitable to determine the creation
of a Demand for Sustainability.
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6 Internet for New Food Lifestyles
“The Portal of Sustainability”, as promoter of new lifestyles compatible with
Sustainability Empowerment devotes a particular section to food. The current offer
of goods and services, although wide, is often incompatible with the principle of food
sustainability, at first against the segmented approaches to well-being (health), then
against the entire paradigm. The offer raises the consumer confusion and inability to
make critical choices. With respect to the latter consideration, which is
contextualized within the model of Shared Social Responsibility, it can be said that it
becomes essential for the Food Matter to pass from the current “Right to Food” to the
“Right to overall food system”. This means that the Food Systems of the planet must
make a Right to Overall Food System compatible with the multidimensional nature
of well-being and its sustainability, so that we come to a universal approach to food
for sustainability and not just food.
This would lead the transition from segmented approaches (social, generational,
territorial, eco-centric and anthropocentric) to the integrated Right to Overall Food
System, in which, in fact, converges all the sustainable aspects of all segmented
approaches.
“The Portal of Sustainability”, believing the Food System an area of great
importance for Sustainable well-being, has dedicated a section to new lifestyles to
steer users toward a new Paradigm of Sustainable Well-being.
6.1 The Short Supply Chain as a reference for sustainable food styles
The underlying values the concept of short supply chain represent a value system
of reference for food patterns that are compatible with the goal of Sustainability
Empowerment.
These are models of life followed by critical consumers who usually inform
themselves about the production process of a certain food, imagining a limited
sequence of steps. The emblematic nature of Short Supply Chain translates the phrase
"from producer to consumer" — referring not only to organoleptic features of the
product but also to aspects of space and time. Indeed, today more than ever, the
concept of Short Supply Chain became a symbol not only of a new way “to provide
food” but above all a new approach to food, a way to retrieve the relationship of trust
with those who create that agro-food product (and therefore not only agricultural)
and, in a situation of economic crisis, a means to reduce the multiplication of the
intermediation cost (AA.VV., 2005; Aguglia, 2009).
The concept of Short Supply Chain, then, went extending beyond the mere
consumer-producer relationship to become the symbol of new patterns and habits that
are going to require more economic, social, environmental, territorial and
generational sustainability2.
2
An example of Short Supply Chain can be one type of "sustainable farmhouse" which,
through an offer compatible with the criteria of Food Sustainability fully complies the
Integrated Approach to Food. It is believed that the critical consumer frequenting a
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7 Conclusions
Wanting to pursue the goal of Sustainability Empowerment it is necessary to
change the current approach to well-being. To this end, it becomes necessary a
crucial paradigm shift able to project the “Global Society System” by a segmented
approach to well-being to a universal approach. If the “Global Society System”
would adopt a new paradigm of well-being, this would have compatible lifestyles
with the goal of Sustainability Empowerment that actually would become those
concrete actions, based on criteria of sustainability. In this way you would identify
lifestyles with that objective parameter to evaluate the actual degree of
"sustainability" of a territory, in which should necessarily be applied a model of
Shared Social Responsibility.
In this work we have given more significance on implementing a portal that
among the various areas of the wellbeing, has planned a large section dedicated to
food, focus on those food lifestyles compatible with an integrated approach to well-
being and in particular on the corresponding reference models as the Short Supply
Chains.
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