The paper presents a study on the transition of the agro-food system in Portugal through the analysis of case studies in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. The theoretical framework draws on the literature on the transition of sociotechnical systems, taking into account the multidimensional nature of the food system (ecological, environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural). Social and institutional innovation, technological innovation, public policy impact, and the interactions with the dominant regime are the main dimensions guiding the study of the organic farming initiatives. We identified the supportive policy measures, the role of producers’ networks, the relevance of values, and the obstacles and challenges these initiatives face in their growth process. While the results are in line with the theoretical debate, they also provide new insights on the selection environment, the networks’ dual nature and the existence of different development paths within the organic food niche. One of the main conclusions is that organic farmers perceive the regulatory framework as unfair relative to that of conventional agriculture. Therefore, it is crucial to change this framework to speed up the transition of the agro-food system in Portugal and at the European level.

In recent years, numerous opportunities have been created to encourage new integrated approaches to sustainable food programs in many sectors, namely education. The critical role played by the State and public policies in the transition toward a more sustainable food system is at stake in the case of public procurement. Having this in mind, this paper explores the emergence of innovative procedures of public procurement in the canteens of Portuguese public schools. After consideration of the evolution of European and Portuguese normative framework regarding this subject, this paper presents a synthesis of the Government database on the public procurement of school food, and two case studies corresponding to two distinct territories where local public administration innovated in terms of public procurement in food preparation. This paper presents the main challenges, barriers and opportunities involved in the inclusion of qualitative criteria in public contracts of acquisition of goods and services, considering social, environmental, and ethical dimensions. Our findings suggest that, in the Portuguese case, and despite the many efforts to actively encourage the use of green and sustainable procedures in the canteens of public schools, the effective realization on the ground is uneven.

The chapter presents typologies of peri-urban areas of Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) regarding social and economic dimensions. These typologies are the outcome of a trans-disciplinary research developed by the project PERI-URBAN involving different Portuguese universities, crossing academic fi elds and integrating the knowledge of stakeholders from diverse institutional and territorial (local and regional) backgrounds. By bridging science and society, transdisciplinarity allows the translation of knowledge acquired in research into useful and relevant information for planners and decision-makers. The analysis reveals diverse socioeconomic realities demanding different and specifi c political approaches envisaging sustainable peri-urban territories in a changing world. The socioeconomy of peri-urban areas considers identities and lifestyle issues (e.g., age, family patterns, living and working conditions) and economic characteristics (e.g., main economic activities, economic organisation and structuring, attractiveness). The infl uence of a metropolitan area is expressed by continuing investments in peripheral areas that offer sources of labour and natural resources such as land. The presence of industries, services, logistics and distribution platforms, enterprises, housing, big store chains, etc., constitutes manifestations of this realm. Plus, and in parallel, the coexistence of a rural-agriculture matrix establishes a hybrid territory where distinct activities co-exist defi ning distinct degrees of specialisation/diversity of the economic tissue.

This paper aims to assess the degree to which sustainability, namely, economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions are integrated within the public discourse on crowdfunding in social media and in Google Trends. The utilizing Social Media Analytics and Google Trends search queries, respectively, we track discussions on crowdfunding in user-generated content published in social media and analyse the Google Trends queries. Quantitative methodology, namely, multivariate analysis and econometric models was used, in order nowcast the insights about the importance of the sustainability dimensions in the crowdfunding. The results show an interesting trend of increasing popularity search terms in sustainability dimensions as a proxi of marketing strategies to involve the participants in the crowdfunding projects.