Aims
The global supply of food is a highly interconnected system, dependent on multiple sectors. Major disruptions to food supply can have direct impacts on vulnerable communities, and indirect impacts such as civil unrest.
We want to influence stakeholders in the food supply chain to encourage understanding of critical infrastructure resilience including transportation whether road, rail, or ports, water and power, and communications systems. We will support better decision making that contributes to resilient infrastructure.
To contribute to this work:
An online survey is available to enable all those with experience and opinions to share them to contribute to our research. Please share this link with interested colleagues world-wide.
https://ovearup.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/supply-chain-resilience-in-the-grocery-sector
Project leaders
Xavier Aldea Borruel
Project Leader
Xavier is a chartered mechanical engineer and is Programme Officer for the Resilience Shift. Xavier has 10 years experience as an engineer, researcher and project manager, and has expertise in resilience of critical infrastructure, flood risk management, climate change and sustainability, with a strong professional background in the water sector.
How are we doing this?
We are using workshops and preparatory research to explore the current level of awareness in the food logistics industry of their dependency on infrastructure resilience.
We want to understand gaps and opportunities in terms of helping it meet current and future challenges related to the resilience of the critical infrastructure (ports, shipping, road, rail, energy, storage) on which it relies.
We have undertaken scoping and research activities to identify the best area of focus, leveraging Arup’s expertise in the logistics sector.
What are the outputs?
The expected impact of this project is to influence stakeholders in the food supply chain, and shift their understanding of the importance of resilience, so that decisions made along the supply chain are influenced by the need for resilience and not only short-term factors.
Workshops have taken place globally:
Our report will contribute to knowledge about resilience of food supply chains, especially the relative importance of critical infrastructure, and indicate a future direction.
Publications
Port energy supply for green shipping corridors
17 March, 2022
Green Recovery and Finance for Sustainable Infrastructure
1 October, 2021
Developing and Accelerating Procurement Practices to Enable Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure
1 September, 2021
Resilience of global food supply chains
25 June, 2019
Resilience of global food supply chains – workshop findings
25 June, 2019
Project Resources
Global supply chain workshop brochure
A series of global workshops has taken place. See our workshop brochure. Workshops focused on the resilience of food supply chains with the objective to provide participants with the opportunity to explore real challenges in this sector and to bring together key stakeholders, encouraging inter-sector collaboration and communication. By collaborating on resilience-focused activity at a global level, it is our intention that we can shape possible pathways forward to allow us to improve the resilience of our infrastructure for all.
Round-table Ports and Logistics
Our recent round-table explored the resilience of critical infrastructure for ports and logistics. Find out more about the conclusions of the workshop.
Collaborators
The Resilience Shift has partnered with Arup's logistics experts under the leadership of Darren Briggs. Darren is a logistics consultant and Associate Director in Advisory Services at Arup. Darren’s main area of expertise is advising on operational requirements and improvements in the built environment, covering construction and new or existing site logistics operations. He has worked on a variety of projects, both in the United Kingdom and internationally, covering most aspects of operations.
Resilience Shift round-table on ports and logistics: Report now available
The round-table provided an opportunity for participants to consider the role of resilience thinking for sea ports and associated logistics operations. The event was designed to stimulate conversation among port operators and stakeholders associated with their supply chains. You can now read the findings of this round-table here.