weaving together our efforts for food security, community resilience, and decarbonization

This presentation brings experts together to discuss how creating more sustainable food management programs can advance a communities’ climate action, food access, and resilience goals. The panel will explore emerging opportunities to decarbonize food systems with solutions that improve food access and community resilience. The presentations will also explore some of the tensions and tradeoffs between GHG emissions reductions, resilience, and food access benefits.

The panel will highlight The Ratio Institutes’ innovative environmental, social, governance (ESG), and resilience planning programs with national grocery stores. Their scalable process will be discussed as a benchmark of how private businesses can approach both behavior and process improvements to improve their ESG performance, as well as their resilience to climate-driven supply chain disruptions or natural disasters. The Ratio Institute will also highlight its partnership with CalPoly SLO which supports experiential learning and job skill development with their undergraduate students. Abound Food Care will highlight its Emergency Meal Planning programs as a way to rescue edible food from waste streams, build climate resilience, and increase the local capacity for disaster relief while also providing other community benefits (culinary job training, healthy and medically-tailored prepared meals, etc.). Route One Farmers Market will highlight how their innovative Mobile Farmer’s Market is increasing food security in some of the most climate-vulnerable areas of Santa Barbara County by making local food more accessible to community members who rely on food incentive programs such as CalFresh EBT. All of the presenters will explore how their organization’s sustainability initiatives are linking decarbonization, food, and resilience to build stronger, healthier communities.

Speakers

Jonathan Tan, Co-Founder, Ratio Institute - Jonathan brings to Ratio Institute more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and a business executive for both Fortune 500 and privately held companies. His career began with driving energy efficiency at food manufacturing and food packaging plants. He transitioned to energy-efficiency work at food retail outlets in the early 2000s, focusing on refrigeration, HVAC, and lighting. Jonathan holds a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Studies from Saint Louis University, a Master’s in Business Administration and Management from Pepperdine University, and has completed continuing education units at the University of Oxford.

Monica White is an Advisory Board Member of Abound Food Care and serves as the Sustainability Manager at Edgar and Associates. Monica has over 15 years of experience working in the sustainability arena where she has led teams in developing sustainability programs for a range of companies and sectors. Monica engaged with CalRecycle through the Senate Bill (SB) 1383 public rulemaking process and currently works throughout the State to prepare jurisdictions on all aspects of SB 1383. Monica also serves as the Coordinator of the California Resource Recovery Association’s Edible Food Recovery Technical Council and has led the development of Funding Guidance Document and Capacity Podcasts that are helping jurisdictions move forward with the implementation of SB 1383.

Shelby Wild is the Founder and Executive Director of Route One Farmers Market in Lompoc, CA. Route One is an organization that works to increase access to local food as well as address and break down barriers that exist in the local food chain. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shelby led her market to be the first in the area to offer a produce bag for curbside contactless pickup for all customers, distributing hundreds of bags of local food to those under shelter-in-place restrictions. Before starting Route One Farmers Market, Shelby worked for seven years as a School Garden Educator at Lompoc Unified School District.

Cristina Czochanski (Facilitator), Food & Energy Associate, Community Environmental Council. Cristina Czochanski works on the CEC Climate Mitigation team. In her role as Food & Energy Associate, she supports CEC’s community programs centered on food accessibility, sustainable food systems, and the transition to renewable energy. Before joining CEC, Cristina farmed in Southern Spain, worked on Carbon Neutrality Analysis, and did climate change research on ecosystem services and agriculture. She is passionate about sustainable agriculture, marine conservation, and community solutions in the pursuit of climate change mitigation.