Socio-Technical Design of Community-Scale Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion Systems
Objectives:
Create stakeholder and process maps for community-scale food waste AD systems to visualize how different actors integrate with AD operations and where priorities align or diverge.
Conduct a comprehensive literature review examining how socio-technical dimensions are conceptualized and analyzed in biogas and anaerobic digestion implementation, identifying dominant frameworks and conceptual gaps in how these systems are understood.
Interview producers, haulers, and operators to understand what factors shape their participation decisions in food-waste-to-AD supply chains and what conditions prevent or enable feedstock supply partnerships.
Synthesize insights across stakeholder perspectives to identify socio-technical barriers and opportunities for the sector
Main Impact:
Understanding what drives producer, hauler, and operator decisions and where interests diverge in the supply chain enables more informed redesign of partnerships and operational structures that support stable feedstock supply chains and viable AD business models
Mapping stakeholder relationships and identifying supply chain barriers reveals where alignment is possible and what structural changes would support reliable collaboration across the food-waste-to-AD sector
EMBERlab Researchers: Andrea Cordova-Cruzatty, Riana Ramirez Torres
Collaborators: Steve Skerlos, Lut Raskin, Steve Skerlos, Shanna Daly.
CIVIC community partner: Jason Feldman, Green Era, Chicago, IL
Funding: National Science Foundation - CIVIC Innovation Challenge Stage 1 Grantee
