Making Everyday Sustainability Work for Everyone
by Strengthening Affordable Access to Healthy Food for Low-Income Residents in Utrecht
This poster presents the outcomes of a Cross-Over Internship conducted at Duurzaam Utrecht 2030, focusing on how everyday sustainability can be made more inclusive by strengthening affordable access to healthy food for lower-income residents in Utrecht. The work responds to a common gap in urban food policy, where sustainability is often defined through labels, certifications, and standards that do not always reflect how people experience food in their daily lives.
Using a transition perspective and a rights-based approach to food, the poster highlights the role of Turkish and Moroccan supermarkets as key access points for affordable, fresh, and culturally appropriate food. Insights from supermarket observations, interviews, and citizen engagement show that many sustainability-related practices already exist in these spaces, such as waste reduction, seasonal sourcing, and informal redistribution. However, these practices often remain invisible within formal sustainability narratives and policy frameworks.
The poster maps the current food system, visualises a more inclusive future system, and identifies key leverage points for change. These leverage points focus on improving information flows by making everyday practices visible, strengthening long-term relationships and trust between residents, retailers, and institutions, reframing system goals to link affordability with sustainability, and challenging the assumption that sustainability is only associated with higher prices or certified products.
Strategic advice centres on making sustainability recognisable in everyday food shopping, building continuity through ongoing citizen engagement, and positioning Duurzaam Utrecht 2030 as a stable connector between community realities and policy spaces. Overall, the poster shows how acting on well-chosen leverage points can support a more just, affordable, and meaningful food system transition grounded in everyday life.
Download the poster and report here: Ofomah, K. O. (2026). Making Everyday Sustainability Work for Everyone by Strengthening Affordable Access to Healthy Food for Low-Income Residents in Utrecht. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18457694
