Francesco Cirone

Mara Petruzzelli
email: mara.petruzzelli@unibo.it

Fabio De Menna

Antonella Samoggia

Enrico Buscaroli

Emanuele Durante

Francesco Orsini

Martí Rufí-Salís

Pietro Tonini

Xavier Gabarrell Durany

Luuk Graamans

Agnès Fargue-Lelièvre

Vèronique Saint-Ges

Runrid Fox-Kämper

Kathrin Specht

José J Pascual-Fernández

Matteo Vittuari

A sustainability scoring system to assess food initiatives in city regions

Keywords: City Region Food System Initiatives, Sustainability Performance, Scoring Mechanism, Multi-Stakeholder Approach, Life Cycle Thinking

The City Region Food Systems approach has been proposed to achieve food system resilience and nutrition security while promoting the urgent ecological transition within urban and peri-urban areas, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the great diversity of the initiatives composing City Region Food Systems in Europe poses barriers to the assessment of their integrated sustainability. Hence, the present work is developed within the EU-H2020 project Food System in European Cities (FoodE), to build a consistent sustainability scoring system that allows comparative evaluation of City Region Food System Initiatives. Adopting a Life Cycle Thinking approach, it advances on existing knowledge and past projects, taking advantage of a participatory process, with stakeholders from multidisciplinary expertise. As a result, the research designs, and tests on 100 case studies a simplified and ready-to-use scoring mechanism based on a quali-quantitative appraisal survey tool, delivering a final sustainability score on a 1-5 points scale, to get insights on the social, economic, and environmental impacts. As in line with the needs of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the outcome represents a step forward for the sustainable development and social innovation of food communities in cities and regions, providing a practical and empirical lens for improved planning and governance.

Introduction

Sustainability has increasingly become central to global, regional, and national agendas. Through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) a shared set of guiding elements has been operationalised to make tangible progress at multiple levels (UN, 2015). Sustainable food systems defined as systems that 'deliver food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised' [START_REF] Fao | The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all[END_REF] are today recognized key segments in the transition to meet these goals [START_REF] Sachs | Six Transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals[END_REF]. Despite meaningful commitments in achieving just food systems, as a result of the globalization process food and nutrition security in European cities and regions are being increasingly challenged by economic, ecologic, and health-related crises (FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO, 2021; [START_REF] Hu | Dynamic healthy food accessibility in a rapidly urbanizing metropolitan area: Socioeconomic inequality and relative contribution of local factors[END_REF][START_REF] Fao | The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021. Transforming food systems for food security, improved nutrition and affordable healthy diets for all[END_REF]. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated vulnerabilities [START_REF] O'meara | Consumer experiences of food environments during the Covid-19 pandemic: Global insights from a rapid online survey of individuals from 119 countries[END_REF], while the current Ukraine war is intensifying the food crisis and accessibility to primary goods [START_REF] Mcgreevy | Sustainable agrifood systems for a post-growth world[END_REF]. More than ever, increased efforts are needed to transform the food system in a way the economic aspirations are considered together with social and environmental ones (Ivo de Carvalho et al., 2022;Fanzo et al., 2021). This urgency asks for both new paradigms able to overcome strict neoclassical interpretations of food system dynamics and new operative assessment to monitor advancements of food system with a comprehensive outlook [START_REF] Mcgreevy | Sustainable agrifood systems for a post-growth world[END_REF]. Over the last decades, multiple approaches to reflect on food system sustainability have flourished. The bioregion paradigm, defined by Harris et al. (2016) as a geographical space characterized by local ecosystem interactions, highlighted the opportunity for human populations to leave their steady-state economies [START_REF] Evanoff | Bioregionalism: A brief introduction and overview[END_REF] by promoting ecologically sensitive agricultural practices (Gilbert et al., 2009) to control their domestic resources [START_REF] Evanoff | Bioregionalism: A brief introduction and overview[END_REF]. In the same way, the foodsheds framework strengthened the relation between producers and consumers in terms of geographical delimitation [START_REF] Arthur | A review of theoretical frameworks of food system governance, and the search for food system sustainability[END_REF], helping to analyse global changes through the lens of the food system (McCabe 2010). Basing on the foodshed delimitation, several assessment models have been developed to explore indicators for improving self-sufficiency in cities and regions [START_REF] Sylla | Assessing food selfsufficiency of selected European Functional Urban Areas vs metropolitan areas[END_REF][START_REF] Vicente | Exploring alternative pathways toward more sustainable regional food systems by foodshed assessment -City region examples from Vienna and Bristol[END_REF][START_REF] Zasada | Food beyond the city -Analysing foodsheds and selfsufficiency for different food system scenarios in European metropolitan regions[END_REF]. The proposed assessments discussed the capacity of local food systems in meeting human dietary needs, but without considering social and economic aspects in the framework of the analysis. A step forward in the sustainability assessment was proposed by the framework of Agroecology-Based Local Agri-Food systems which identify four categories to evaluate food initiatives, i.e., environmental health, economic viability, social equity and right [START_REF] De Molina | Principles for designing Agroecology-based Local (territorial) Agri-food Systems: a critical revision[END_REF]. Still, operative methodologies to measure it are falling short. On the agroecology principle also the bio district approach emerged, defining territories as farming systems, where natural resources are sustainable managed by local stakeholders J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f following agroecology and organic farming principles [START_REF] Passaro | Spaces of sustainable transformation at territorial level: an analysis of biodistricts and their role for agroecological transitions[END_REF]. Despite their specificities, the abovementioned concepts fail to consider the complexity and diversity of the relationships between (and among) people and places, beyond food flows [START_REF] Blay-Palmer | Validating the City Region Food System Approach: Enacting Inclusive, Transformational City Region Food Systems[END_REF]. Across the several approaches and operative definitions of sustainable food systems [START_REF] Blay-Palmer | Validating the City Region Food System Approach: Enacting Inclusive, Transformational City Region Food Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Born | Avoiding the Local Trap: Scale and Food Systems in Planning Research[END_REF][START_REF] Ericksen | Conceptualizing food systems for global environmental change research[END_REF], one of the most proposed approaches to advance in this direction is the City Region Food System (CRFS). It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Resource Centre for Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) as 'an approach aimed to foster the development of resilient and sustainable food systems within urban centres, peri-urban and rural areas surrounding cities by strengthening rural-urban linkages' (FAO & RUAF, 2015). As a result of the globalisation process, city-regions represent major places of agglomeration of goods, while at the level of social dynamics, stakeholder groups lobby for their rights, beyond the economic growth [START_REF] Arthur | A review of theoretical frameworks of food system governance, and the search for food system sustainability[END_REF]. Envisioning a single network of all the urban, peri-urban and rural linkages of food consumers, producers, suppliers and processors operating in a given city-region, the CRFS approach is largely recognized for shaping a sustainable environment able to provide accessible, affordable, safe and nutritious food (FAO & RUAF, 2015). In this respect, CRFS performances are assessed through several indicators for six areas of intervention, namely social, economic and environmental sustainability, urban-rural integration, governance and resilience [START_REF] Carey | Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security[END_REF], which have been applied for evaluating different city-regions at global scale [START_REF] Chappell | Participation in a city food security program may be linked to higher ant alpha-and beta-diversity: An exploratory case from Belo Horizonte, Brazil[END_REF][START_REF] Forster | City regions as landscapes for people, food and nature[END_REF]. Nevertheless, literature does not yet offer consistent evidence of a sustainability performance of CRFS that combines Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methodologies, only providing partial or alternative integrations. For example, [START_REF] Stillitano | Economy Pathways in a Life Cycle Perspective: State of the Art of Applicative Research Sustainability[END_REF] stated that most case studies implement a standalone LCA to specifically evaluate the benefits and impacts of circular economy strategies in the context of agri-food activities. Few studies combined LCA with the LCC approach, and none dealt with S-LCA. Single attempts proposed to integrate LCA and LCC approaches to specifically address a sustainability evaluation of a CRFS [START_REF] Sanye-Mengual | Social acceptance and perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in Southern Europe: the case of Bologna[END_REF]. However, the environmental and economic impact categories considered did not provide a comprehensive assessment analysis, as they focused on specific aspects. Furthermore, some multi-criteria assessment methods were designed to assess the sustainability of farms, but the literature has pointed out that these tools are largely unsuitable for multifunctional CRFS initiatives since they focus on agricultural activities and production and fail to consider non-agricultural activities [START_REF] Barbier | Assessment of the sustainability of agricultural production: the limits of normal approach and ways of improvement[END_REF]. Some assessment methods have been designed specifically for urban agriculture, but the focus is mostly on the environmental pillar [START_REF] Langemeyer | Contrasting values of cultural ecosystem services in urban areas: The case of park Montjuïc in Barcelona[END_REF][START_REF] Lin | The future of urban agriculture and biodiversity-ecosystem services: Challenges and next steps[END_REF][START_REF] Petit-Boix | From Cascade to Bottom-Up Ecosystem Services Model: How Does Social Cohesion Emerge from Urban Agriculture?[END_REF][START_REF] Wang | Social Value of Urban Rooftop Farming: A Hong Kong Case Study[END_REF], disregarding social and economic consequences. Others have been designed without the stakeholders' involvement (Corvo et al., 2021) or not testing it to case studies (Ivo de Carvalho et al., 2022). Moreover, despite the validity of those approaches in identifying areas of intervention at a territorial scale [START_REF] Armendáriz | Systemic Analysis of Food Supply and Distribution Systems in City-Region Systems-An Examination of FAO's Policy Guidelines towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Blay-Palmer | Validating the City Region Food System Approach: Enacting Inclusive, Transformational City Region Food Systems[END_REF], most of them were built on data gathered at city-region level, and not at the initiative level. Especially, they did not discriminate against punctual variances within a food system and could not account for individual stakeholders or local variances (e.g., different districts or enterprises). Additionally, they included indicators that could hardly be measured at this level, like most of the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture (SAFA) indicators (FAO, 2013) or those developed by urbanists, implemented at the city level or at best at borough level (Teitel-Payne et al., 2016;[START_REF] Altman | Five borough farm II: Growing the benefits of urban agriculture in New York City. Design Trust for Public Space[END_REF]. Furthermore, the few sustainability assessment frameworks developed at the initiative level were anyhow either looking only at one or two pillars of sustainability or a sector or specific crop and not at the CRFS itself [START_REF] Dorr | Environmental impacts and resource use of urban agriculture: a systematic review and meta-analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Stillitano | Economy Pathways in a Life Cycle Perspective: State of the Art of Applicative Research Sustainability[END_REF] (see also Supplementary Material (SM) Table A). As a result, the literature highlighted the need for a comprehensive and systemic approach that can ensure: 1) operationalisation of the assessment at the initiative level, and 2) an adequate representation of different sustainability dimensions, including social, economic, and environmental aspects [START_REF] Trachsel | Finding and analyzing social hotspots in a global food value chain as a basis for livelihood improvement[END_REF]. Hence, the present work discloses the research carried out within the FoodE project on the development and testing of an assessment scoring framework designed on Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) and builds on previous knowledge and co-design processes, to analyse the sustainability of CRFS Initiatives (CRFSI) through a single synthetic, comprehensive and coherent mechanism. As such, the simplified scoring framework is not intended to substitute a full LCA, LCC, and S-LCA assessment, but rather to be used as a scoping mechanism in the design phase of an extensive study, or as an auto scoring tool for non LCT practitioners, or as an understanding of the sustainability performances of city region environment across a different period [START_REF] Deng | A Quick Assessment Method to Evaluate Sustainability of Urban Built Environment: Case Studies of Four Large-Sized Chinese Cities[END_REF].

Methods

Theoretical background

Starting from the CRFS definition described by the FAO & RUAF (2015), 600+ European initiatives were scouted and selected by the FoodE project to better identify the most relevant characteristics of CRFSI, in terms of the type of organization, food-related operations, workforce, size, and relations with customers and society. The identified key features allowed to characterise European CRFSI through their key activities, relevant external and internal partnerships, impact areas, innovation strategies and collaborative attitudes. Therefore, CRFSI can be defined as profit or non-profit entities involved in the food system in strong connection with their territorial context and being in one or more of the following activities: agriculture & fishing, food processing (e.g., transformation of agricultural products into food), food distribution (e.g., wholesale, retail, community supported agriculture), food service and consumption (e.g., catering, cooking, restauration), food waste management, education and services. Their workforce is often composed of less than 10 employees, with volunteers involved in several cases. They are located in, or nearby cities or consumption centres and they bond mutual relationships with their final users, enabling the creation of ruralurban linkages. This working definition has been used as a unit for the sustainability scoring system development.

Scoring system development

Since CRFSI are characterized by a wide diversity of functions, products, and processes, the scoring system was designed to cover and assess a wide variety of activities. The requirements for the scoring system are both to allow a rapid quali-quantitative appraisal for the evaluation of CRFSI, and to develop it both for the use by experienced practitioners and by non-practitioners for a generic analysis and understanding. Despite the fact the initial scope of the scoring system is focused on the European area, it stands to be applied globally, taking into consideration several local characteristics for further tailoring and data interpretation. This means local characteristics need to be broadly explored when applying the sustainability scoring system. The backbone of FoodE methodology for the CRFSI scoring mechanism builds on three main aspects: a Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) approach, the existent knowledge and co-design processes with practitioners from different knowledge backgrounds. The former is adopted to include all three sustainability pillars in an integrated manner [START_REF] Petit-Boix | Application of life cycle thinking towards sustainable cities: A review[END_REF][START_REF] Sanyé Mengual | Sustainability assessment of urban rooftop farming using an interdisciplinary approach[END_REF]. The second is based on key national and international projects on CRFS developed in recent years and the available peer-reviewed literature. The latter is based on the previous methodological experience in co-creation processes [START_REF] Manríquez-Altamirano | Identifying potential applications for residual biomass from urban agriculture through eco-ideation: Tomato stems from rooftop greenhouses[END_REF][START_REF] López-Forniés | Metric for measuring the effectiveness of an eco-ideation process[END_REF][START_REF] Sierra-Pérez | Introducing eco-ideation and creativity techniques to increase and diversify the applications of eco-materials: The case of cork in the building sector[END_REF], and internal and external consultation processes followed to improve the sustainability scoring system. Overall, the novelty of the present FoodE methodological development consists first in the modelling of the LCT approach on CRFSI, then in its scoring mechanisms which provide a final sustainability result, and finally in its feasibility both for LCT and non-LCT practitioners in replicating the scoring mechanism. Furthermore, as highlighted by other scientific researches, the sustainability scoring system can support city region urban policy makers and food initiatives in taking effective interventions to improve the sustainability performance of their food system [START_REF] Maliene | A Sustainability Assessment Framework for the High Street[END_REF]. The following sections describe in detail the three aspects of the methodology. Life Cycle Thinking approach LCT constitutes the first conceptual foundation of the sustainability scoring system [START_REF] Petit-Boix | Application of life cycle thinking towards sustainable cities: A review[END_REF]. The evaluation of food system sustainability within city-regions implies embracing the multiplicity and complexity of supply chains, impact pathways, and affected stakeholders in different areas. This challenge can be addressed only by going beyond the global, de-localized production approach and related processes J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f and including all sustainability pillars: social impact (e.g., labour, health, innovation); economic impact (e.g., costs, net present value, value added); environmental impact (e.g., carbon footprint, land use, water scarcity). The three pillars of sustainability are not exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing. Furthermore, promoting the territorial proximity of food supply chains represents a key element in meeting the CRFS definition and its sustainability. Overall, the social pillar focuses on the process of creating sustainable, successful places that promote wellbeing, by understanding what people need from the places they live and work at (Taslis et al., 2022;UNEP 2020). The economic pillar represents a broad interpretation of ecological economics where environmental and ecological variables and issues are basic but part of a multidimensional perspective [START_REF] Peña | The Marine Stewardship Council certification in Latin America and the Caribbean: A review of experiences, potentials and pitfalls[END_REF][START_REF] Estevan | Average number of usual weekly hours of work in main[END_REF][START_REF] Iso | ISO 14040: Environmental management -Life cycle assessment -Principles and framework[END_REF]. Finally, the environmental pillar concerns the human impact on nature, its ecological processes and ecosystem services provided [START_REF] Hauschild | Life Cycle Assessment: Theory and Pratice[END_REF][START_REF] Iso | ISO 14040: Environmental management -Life cycle assessment -Principles and framework[END_REF][START_REF] Setac | A technical framework for life cycle assessment[END_REF]. These three pillars serve as a common ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years, in particular in the food industry [START_REF] Notarnicola | The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems: A review of the challenges[END_REF], and were used as the basis to select a set of impact categories and KPIs for the scoring mechanism. Previous Knowledge To focus on relevant hotspots only, impact categories and KPIs were screened based on previous knowledge. Among key projects and initiatives operated in the recent past by FoodE partners, the ones with a relevant contribution towards an integrated methodology for a sustainability assessment of food systems segments were selected. The full list of selected projects is presented in SM Table B, along with the covered pillars and the general methodology. Some of the research projects used a more standardised methods for their indicators choice while other studies focused on the development of new indicators, especially regarding the S-LCA, for example when it came to the assessment of innovation in urban agriculture. In general, while the evaluation of environmental impacts through LCA is already standardised, its integration with other methods to include economic and social impacts of food production systems has been tackled in a variety of ways, and it calls for a more integrated approach, to be eventually generalised for CRFSI. To integrate previous projects, a literature review of the integrated Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of CRFS was also carried out using the keywords 'life cycle sustainability assessment*' and 'food*' on the Scopus database to derive an overview of current knowledge, possible indicators, and assessment methods. SM Table A summarizes the relevant works along with information on pillars, general approaches, and methodologies. This literature was used in combination with knowledge from previous projects to derive an overview of existing tools and indicators that constitute the base of the sustainability scoring system. The initial design step included the most common of these indicators to then start an iterative participatory consultation for the final sustainability scoring system development.

Co-design process

The involvement of a variety of stakeholders had a key role to support the development of the integrated assessment methodology and was deemed necessary to deliver a consistent mechanism, translating the complexity of sustainability to clear and manageable metrics. To this aim, coherently with the Citizen Science and Responsible Research & Innovation principles [START_REF] Robinson | Ten principles of citizen science[END_REF] a participatory approach was adopted to co-design the scoring mechanism. The participatory consultation was conducted in four main steps and included multiple hierarchical levels. An opportunistic approach was applied to co-create indicators and set-up the scoring system [START_REF] Winjberg | Normative stakeholders theory and Aristotle : the link between ethics and politics[END_REF] involving various experts in the field of food system sustainability. Then, the principle of completeness was applied [START_REF] Geibler | Accounting for the social dimension of sustainability: experiences from the biotechnology industry[END_REF] in the co-design session aimed to inform and consult stakeholders. This latter approach was fundamental to find a balance between the analysis capacity that LCA tools could provide to actors and the ease of understand the results (Renouf et al. 2018). To ensure inputs from all stakeholders online and offline methodologies were used. Interactions between the different participants were elicited through focus group discussions [START_REF] Belzile | Where to begin? Grappling with how to use participant interaction in focus group design[END_REF]) carried out in small groups and led by design developers. It was crucial to achieve user participation in design and gather all relevant information [START_REF] Yanki | Design participation tactics: the challenges and new roles for designers in the co-design process[END_REF]. Besides that, online tools such as Mentimeter were used to collect inputs from participants during and after the participatory activities [START_REF] Zhang | Engaging customers in value co-creation or codestruction online[END_REF]).

J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f

A first consultation step, aiming at involving the FoodE actors, was organised during the recurrent FoodE General Assembly (GA), composed by 23 partners with a wide diversity of perspectives and expertise on food systems. The GA included professors, researchers and students, food businesses, CRFSI, NGOs, professionals and municipal actors dealing with food policies. Primarily, the first FoodE GA meeting (February 2020) served to kick-off preliminary discussion on the CRFSI definition and its sustainability dimensions. A live survey was launched and all attendees (around 68 staff members from the FoodE consortium partners) were involved in a participatory discussion. This initial activity was used to set the scene and create a common vocabulary on food system sustainability. In particular, participants were asked what adjectives could describe the CRFSI with which a word cloud was created based on the word frequency. After compiling the database of CRFSI in Europe, half a year later during the third FoodE GA meeting (July 2020) a second online session was organised. It consisted in a simplified participatory review to get feedback on the most effective Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be used when measuring sustainability and on the relative selected questions needed to investigate them. The KPIs were selected on the basis of a literature review to identify key indicators for environmental, social and economic analysis. The project partners were asked to rank the KPIs according to the City Region Food System framework defined in the first participatory activity. The results were used to design the KPIs and the relative questions. A second consultation step on the sustainability of CRFSI was developed during the FoodE Winter School (February 2021), an online event organised by FoodE with the participation of around 50 individuals (both within and outside the FoodE consortium). The winter school was elaborated on purpose to simultaneously obtain awareness creation and stimulate participatory co-design for the assessment indicators. The involved arena included young and senior researchers, students, and professors, interested in the food system sustainability evaluation. A total of 18 organisations from 7 different countries (Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Norway) were involved in the FoodE Winter School either as participants, speakers or organizers. Within the workshop, participants were involved in two afternoon sessions on the environmental and on the integrated economic-social assessment, respectively. The different working groups were set up to share expertise in a mixed way across the different discussion tables to ensure multidisciplinary knowledge sharing. This activity was used to test the sustainability scoring system on different CRFSI thus stimulating participants to offer their views and experiences. The feedback was collected with a focus group discussion with the participants of the workshops and then output used to achieve the final version of the mechanism. The third consultation step assessed the relevance of the KPIs, and the availability of the data explored in the survey by involving the member of the stakeholder board established in the different FoodE related regions. The scoring system was carried out by means of a Likert scale from 0 to 5 and the questions with the lowest score were modified or deleted to improve the response rate and the clearness of the methodology. The stakeholder board is composed by a variety of 102 geographically distributed bodies across Europe, including NGO, schools, CRFSI, public administrators (PAs) and policy makers, citizens and researchers to support the definition of the priorities at local level. The detailed composition of the FoodE stakeholder board participants is showed in Table 1. The final consultation phase involved only experts and consisted in a final round of participatory revisions from around 15 well-recognised researchers working specifically on the sustainability of the agri-food sector.

Starting from the finalized survey, a methodological refinement was advanced. Professionals from fisheries, growing systems and animal husbandries were asked to verify whether the system structure was appropriate for respondents and if the required information was likely to be measured and shared by the respondents. Discussions were organised online, both on a bilateral basis and as a mixed working group and results were used to revise the survey.

The final feature of the approach was the validation of the sustainability scoring system. This phase aimed at ensuring its applicability and at validating the data collection protocol. Also in this case, the involvement of relevant experts and stakeholders played a crucial role. Experts and researchers addressed in the co-design and participatory consultation provided various feedback on the efficacy, the detailedness and the clearness of questions. Five selected CRFSI owners were involved in testing the final survey. They were asked to answer the various questions and then to provide feedback on comprehensibility, duration, and ease of response.

Testing

The indicators have been then tested on 100 case studies in 10 European countries involved in the European project H2020 of FoodE. The scope of this specific phase was to identify potential strengths, opportunities, and weaknesses of the sustainability scoring system rather than to assess the performances of a representative sample across Europe. Hence, for the data collection, data from each CRFSI was collected through the dissemination of an online survey on Qualtrics. A complete description of the survey is included in SM Table C. Data collection took place from July 2021 to December 2021.

The results of the testing have been analysed and processed individually. A Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Editor was first used to process collected data from Qualtrics into a spreadsheet. In a second step, R programming language for statistical computing and graphical representation was used to run calculations and process and visualize data.

Results and Discussion

Sustainability scoring system

The Sustainability scoring system resulting from the described process is detailed below. All three pillars resulting in Impact Categories (IC), KPIs and description and unit of measurement are described in Table 2.

For the social pillar, the focus of the IC is on i) the job opportunity at CRFSI level, ii) the embedment in the community, and iii) the quality and safety of their food. For SocIC1 the number of jobs, compensation, workforce composition, training, and gender equality factors are considered. In particular, as for the job compensation, intended as the average gross monthly salary, the ranges included are related to the average salaries of the European Union in 2020 (Eurostat, 2022; Eurostat 2021). For SocIC2, the direct social impact is closely related to the engagement of certain demography and it is measured in the number and type of events organised or even community training opportunities. Finally, SocIC3 are included ranging from food perception factors (e.g., appearance, texture, and flavour) to external food attributes (e.g., price, animal welfare degree).

For the economic pillar, the focus of the IC is on i) the general profitability and business's future outlook, ii) the embeddedness of CRFSI within the local economy, and iii) the customer and users profile. The EcoIC1 includes profit margins, revenue diversification (e.g., product revenue, activity revenue or other forms of income such as public or private funding) and business's future outlook. The The EcoIC2 is proxied by assessing the locally sourced supply and labour, as well as fair practices towards suppliers. The EcoIC3 is analysed to evaluate citizens' and consumers' fidelity, relationships, and habits. Finally, the environmental pillar the focus of the IC is on i) the food production supply, ii) resource use efficiency, iii) waste management & circularity and, iv) transport. The EnvIC1 entails elements such as the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f typology of technology used for crop production, the animal feed provenance, the typology of fishing gears, the inclusion of agricultural biodiversity measures, and food characteristics. The EnvIC2 refers to the use of different resources, such as water, electricity and heating. The EnvIC3 is composed by waste production and measures to reduce or reuse waste. Finally, the EnvIC4 is related to food logistic from suppliers and to consumers. The usage of composable and recyclable packaging and materials.

Recyclability and compostability degree

Packaging and materials reusability EnvKPI 12

The usage of reusable packaging and materials.

Reusability degree

Transport EnvIC 4

Distance from clients/ customers

EnvKPI13

The distance between the initiative and key clients/customers km

Type of transport to clients/ customers

EnvKPI14

The type of transport used between the initiative and key suppliers.

Degree of Fossil fuel employment

Type of transport of supplies EnvKPI15

The type of transport used between the initiative and their supplies.

Degree of Fossil fuel employment

J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f

Journal Pre-proof

Testing

To move each KPIs into metrics for the online scorable survey, these were translated into three types of questions (see SM Table C):

1. Binary question (yes/no), where the no option corresponds to the lower sustainable solution (1 point), and the yes option to the most sustainable one (5 points). 2. 5-points Likert scale with 5 options as answers. The options correspond to a score going from the least sustainable solution (1 point) to the most sustainable solution (5 points). In one of these questions (Q2.4), the 'I don't know was included as a third one on the scale, with a score of 3 points. This is because, for that kind of question, the lack of related information was considered an indicator of not optimal monitoring of the process and hence of an average CRFSI performance. 3. Set of open questions, whose answer range couldn't be defined after the testing in a consistent way.

The choice was established during the co-design approach to leave to the testing phase the responsibility of establishing the quantitative ranges that would lead to Likert-type scoring. These questions are Q1.1, Q1.4. Q2.1. The scored mechanism rationale behind these questions is developed given the percentiles of the cumulate answers considered in the testing phase. It means that answers in the first percentile are meant to be assigned with a score of 1 and answers in the fifth percentile meant to be assigned a score of 5 with the central values following the same reasoning. 4. Other questions (namely Q3.1), in which the respondent was given a list of 11 sustainability strategies from which he/she could choose. The scoring was then based on the number of strategies selected (e.g., 1 to 2 was assigned 1 point, 3 to 4 was assigned 2 points).

Given the necessity to build a scoring system applicable to a large set of CRFSI, active in very different segments of the food supply chain, we foresaw the possibility of two questions being not applicable to a CRFSI. In that case, the choice to include the 'I do not produce, manage or sell' option as a central value the scoring scale was taken. These questions are Q3.2, Q3.3. Additionally, for each sustainability pillar, an additional blank space was included to allow CRFSI respondents in discussing additional points recognized as important and helping the contextualization of results.

The overall sustainability scoring system is then obtained by aggregating the different points.

To guarantee a parallel weight to all KPIs, impact categories, and sustainability pillars, the points of each question are weighted accordingly to the number of questions in the relative KPIs. In turn, the points of each KPIs are weighted accordingly to the number of KPIs in the relative sustainability pillar.

In doing so, each pillar results in a final score between 1-5 which is then aggregated with the remaining sustainability pillars to compose the final single sustainability score for each CRFSI (always from 1-5).

Based on the scoring mechanism, the highest scores (5) correspond to the best sustainability performances, whereas the lowest values (1) are associated with the lowest integration of sustainable choices. Results need to be interpreted both on individual KPIs, on each sustainability pillar, and on the overall integrated sustainability degree level. The sole analysis of the single score is highly discouraged, as it is intended only as a synthetic measure and for dissemination purposes.

The distribution of surveyed 100 CRFSI for testing is described in Figure 1.

J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f scale, this means that the sustainability of CRFSI is on average above the medium level, with only a few outliers having low performances (e.g., 2.18 and 2.31). The scoring results of pillars and single score is quite consistent across different countries, with Germany, Romania, and Norway having a slightly higher than average score. The environmental scoring (3.15±0.10) is on average lower than the economic and social one (3.37±0.09 and 3.39±0.11). In this case, differences among countries are more evident (see Fig. 2), probably due to the diverse typologies of CRFSI involved and the number of responding CRFSI for each EU country.

Social Dimension

Figure 4 shows the average scores for the 3 Impact Categories (IC) of the social pillar. The highest score is related to the 'food quality' (soclC3) having a value 4.10±0.15. This is followed by the social category 'job' (quantity, quality, and diversity) (soclC1) (3.07±0.15), and by the 'Community outreach, engagement & education' (soclC2) (3.00±0.21) even though the values are quite close.

The comparison of three IC (Figure 4) in the box plot shows that IC 'Job' (soclC1) and 'Community outreach, engagement & education' (soclC2) are similar on average even though the latter presents a higher level of diversity on the answers. However, the SocIC2 results are more heterogeneously distributed across the median, probably due to the very different settings of the tested CRFSI. The above-average results of this pillar is attributed to IC 'Food quality' (SocIC3), which also presents the lower answers variability. Such result is explained by the relevance of the food quality concept (Sadilek, 2018) that led consumers/users to a overall consensus on the importance of it.

In general for the social IC, as the Standard Deviation (SD) shows (0.57) concerning its average (3.39), it can be observed that the answers do not present a high level of variability.

When analysing scores related to KPIs (Figure 5) for each social ICs, it is possible to get a more detailed understanding of the specific drivers of impact in each category. The highest average score is related to 'Product characteristics' -4.10±0.15 (SocKPI10), which is the only KPI in the IC 'Food quality' (soclC3). This result highlights that for CRFSI owners the most important characteristic of their products is the item of 'Taste and freshness' with an average score of 4.56±0.18. Furthermore, it is important to highlight that 'Local' and 'Environmental sustainability' items are the second most important information that CRFSI owners want to communicate to their customer segment with the same average score of 4.40±0.15. While the second most important social KPI is SocKPI5 'Gender equality' -3.57±0.33, related to the IC 'Job quality' (soclC1). This result shows the proactive approach of CRFSI on the management of gender equality in the workplace. It must be noted that gender balance is proxied by the share of women in the workplace, without considering nonbinary individuals as well as qualitative or income-related aspects of gender balance. However, the low score of SocKPI3'Average gross monthly salary' -2.05±0.20 means that CRFSI provide a relatively consistent job opportunity to both women and men, with permanent positions, trainings, but with a relatively low salary. While concerning the IC 'Community outreach, engagement & education' (soclC2), it is possible to argue that higher scores are derived from SocKPI9 'Volunteers' activities'-3.42±0.38, and 'Disadvantaged people' (SocKPI7 -3.18±0.39), and the SocKPI8 'Connection with local producers' -3.18±0.39. Interesting to analyse is the SocKPI6 'Organization of outreach events' -2.22±0.28 which show a low score result and it is clearly affected by the limitations imposed for the spread of Covid-19. Economic Dimension Figure 6 shows the average scores for the 3 IC of the economic pillar which presents the lowest variability across indicators. The highest score is related to the 'Local economic development' (EcolC2) with a value of 3.51±0.19. This is followed by the 'Organization profitability and outlook' (EcolC1) (3.31±0.14), and then by the 'Customers and users' (EcolC3) (3.29±0.12). The box plot in Figure 6 shows that all three IC are similar on average even though EcolC2 presents a higher level of diversity in the answers. Given the great diversity of CRFSI, the definition and evaluation of the local dimension for CRFSI might differ significantly [START_REF] Forster | City Region Food Systems: An inclusive and integrated approach to improving food systems and urban-rural linkages[END_REF]. There is not a common standard definition for short distances in food supply chains, especially for the diversity of CRFSI (Belletti & Marescotti, 2020). As a consequence, the set distance of 50 km for the EcoKPI5 'Locally sourced supply' results (e.g., fishery related CRFSI) do have different significance depending on the location of each CRFS. However, it can be noted that in general, for the economic IC, the answers do not present a high level of variability (3.37 ±0.47).

When analysing scores related to KPIs for the economic ICs (Figure 7), it is possible to get a deeper understanding of the specific drivers of impact. The highest average score is related to EcoKPI3 'Business future' -3.82±0.13, which is one of the three KPIs for 'Organization profitability and outlook' (EcolC1). A deeper overview of this economic KPI highlights that for CRFSI owners the most important change in their Business in the next three years will be the 'Number of customers/clients/users' with an average score of 4.04±0.16. In addition, also the other items 'Product sales', 'Other revenues', and 'Profits' have a high average score (3.90±0,18; 3.65±0,16; 3.67 ±0,16). It means that most of the CRFSI owners are quite optimistic about the future even with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most CRFSI assessed their outlook quite positively in terms of sales, revenues, profits, and customers. A medium score of EcoKPI1 'Annual net profit margin' -3.21±0.25 is reported, while a slightly lower than average value for EcoKPI2 'Diversification of income' -2.92±0.29 is registered. As mentioned, ties to local economies are demonstrated by the consistently high scores in all EcoKPI4-6 for the EcolC2 ('Provenance of employees', 'Locally sourced supply', 'Suppliers' practices'), in particular when it comes to the adoption of fair practices towards suppliers.

The positive outlook in terms of customers ( EcolC3) is confirmed by the scores related to EcoKPI7 'Customers/users' acquisition' -3.53±0.15, and EcoKPI8 'Return rates' -3.67±0.15 thanks to the positive effect of the word of mouth (see EcoKPI10 'Customers/users return reason'). However, their expenditure does not tend to increase (see EcoKPI9 'Customer/user expenditure'). Finally, as far as online selling is regarded, the average score suggests that such a channel typology is adopted only by 50% of CRFSI. Environmental Dimension Figure 8 shows the average scores for the 4 IC of the environmental pillar. The highest score is related to 'Waste management and circularity' (EnvIC3) having a value of 3.76±0.68. This is followed by the environmental category 'Resource use efficiency' (EnvIC1) (3.21±1.01), and 'Food production/supply' (EnvIC2) (2.99±0.62) and 'Transport' (2.63±1.22) (EnvIC4), having the lowest score with the greatest SD.

The comparison of the four environmental IC (Figure 9) in the box plot shows that EnvlC1 and EnvlC2 are similar on average even though the latter presents a higher level of diversity on the answers (1.01 compared to 0.62). When we look at the environmental single pillar score (3.15±0.53), the SD shows lower value than the one obtained in the four environmental IC.

When analysing scores related to environmental KPIs in Figure 9, it is possible to get a deeper understanding of the specific drivers of impact. The highest average score is related to EnvKPI6 'Water saving practices' -4.11±1.16, which is one of the three KPIs for 'Resource use efficiency' (EnvIC2). This score is more than 1 point above the other two KPIs of EnvIC2, i.e., EnvKPI7 'Electricity sources' -2.67±1.40, and EnvKPI8 'Heating sources' -2.85±1.63. These two latter KPIs are among the lowest scores across the environmental KPIs. Such a result reveals that CRFSI still use more fossil fuel energy resources than renewable ones. However as highlighted by [START_REF] Gielen | The Role of Renewable Energy in the Global Energy Transformation[END_REF] the adoption of more energy efficient infrastructures and At the core of the CRFS approach there is the need to improve short-range food systems and strengthen rural, peri-urban, and urban linkages based on local production, low dependency on food imports and long-distance food trade [START_REF] Jennings | Food in an urbanised world. The role of city region food systems in resilience and sustainable development[END_REF]. As already outlined by [START_REF] Manning | Development of sustainability indicator scoring (SIS) for the food supply chain[END_REF], scoring mechanisms can support food systems improvements in monitoring the abovementioned advancements. On this background the work proposed a sustainability scoring system where multiple indicators on the social, economic and environmental dimensions are integrated into a single score. Such integration offers an opportunity to obtain a sustainability performance overview which considers trade-offs between pillars and indicate the most sustainable evaluation option as suggested by [START_REF] Bunge | A systematic scoping review of the sustainability of vertical farming, plant-based alternatives, food delivery services and blockchain in food systems[END_REF].

The most relevant answers provided in the blank spaces of the online survey were also considered relevant for the discussion of the sustainability scoring system and reported in the SM Table D. Since the scoring system was designed to be as inclusive as possible for different CRFSI dealing with different steps of the food chain (e.g., food production, transportation, distribution, services) and different food typologies (e.g., meat, dairy, vegetables, fruits), some CRFSI faced challenges in answering one or more questions. Specific examples are provided by additional remarks 1-10, in SM Table D. This kind of challenge applies for instance to non-profit initiatives which tend to adopt different financial structures (Cestari et al., 2021) and informal mechanism [START_REF] Medici | Exploring the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of community-supported agriculture in Italy[END_REF]. Relatively to other specific models of production, such as Community Supported Agriculture or Solidarity Purchased Groups, they might entail fixed subscriptions for members or customers [START_REF] Medici | Exploring the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of community-supported agriculture in Italy[END_REF] and a constant money collection from this financial source (see additional remarks 5-7 in SM Table D).

An additional point of interest is towards family-owned initiatives. Some of them obtained lower scoring values for the 'Job' IC given the fact they don't employ anyone outside their family members. In some cases, they also work for self-sufficiency only (see additional remarks 11-13 in SM Table D).

It is also worth noticing that some terms used for the sustainability assessment might have been interpreted differently by each CRFSI. Some examples of how this might have influenced the CRFSI answers are provided in remarks 14-16 of SM Table D. Such a concern suggests that providing the respondents with standardized vocabulary explanation might have helped in standardising the answers meaning. Something similar emerged for the fishery related CRFSI. In EnvKPI3 ('fishing gear type'), the large share of the 'I do not produce, manage or sell'' or 'I don't know' answers might be related to the formulation of the question related to fishing gears, which was interpreted differently from the fishers involved. The lifespan of each CRFSI could have also influenced the final sustainability scoring. Examples refer to the workplace training or frequency of events which might be harder to organize in newly settled CRFSI. Or still, very young initiatives might have obtained lower sustainability scores in 'Organisation profitability and outlook' IC because the initial years of activities can be particularly critical from a financial perspective [START_REF] Bartz | Flexible or Fragile? The Growth Performance of Small and Young Businesses during the Global Fi Nancial Crisis -Evidence from Germany[END_REF] and because it is quite hard to forecast the business future they expect (Lisa-Marie Semke, 2020). In parallel, the total expenditure increase of customers and their return rate might also be quite difficult to be estimated at the very early stage of activity [START_REF] Terpstra | Customer Satisfaction : Cost Driver or Value Driver ? Empirical Evidence from the Financial Services Industry[END_REF] (see remarks 19-21 in SM Table D).

An additional point of attention refers to the fact that people answering the survey can influence the results [START_REF] Stocké | Attitudes toward Surveys, Attitude Accessibility and the Effect on Respondents' Susceptibility to Nonresponse[END_REF]. In particular, as also highlighted in the additional remarks (SM Table D, Additional remarks 22,23), when the individual is not fully aware of the CRFSI functioning he or she might risk including biased data. Hence, making sure to address the adequate CRFSI stakeholder is a key preliminary issue for the quality of the assessment.

Relatively to the scoring system design, some impact categories were excluded based on prioritisation by stakeholders engaged, to ensure a reduced data intensiveness and guarantee the comparability of the results.

As an example, animal welfare is considered just from a customer or user perspective while it is not investigated in terms of production systems. Similarly, stakeholders' trust is captured only through consumers. We recommend future context-based application to further explore those factors. Lastly, the cultural dimension was included in the scoring system through several KPIs disseminated in the pillars (e.g., 'Gender equality', 'Ancient cultivar or local breed', 'Products characteristics'), rather than through an adhoc pillar. Still, as already highlighted by [START_REF] Pizzirani | Is there a place for culture in life cycle sustainability assessment[END_REF], further efforts are needed to investigate the role of culture in sustainability assessments. Basing on these considerations, when applications of the J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f sustainability scoring system are conducted in different contexts, stakeholders are encouraged to review and tailor KPIs basing on local characteristics.

Conclusions

Given the need of understanding and improving the sustainability performances of the food system in cities and regions from a multidisciplinary outlook, the present work aims to move in this direction.

Based on the Life Cycle Thinking methodology, on the knowledge acquired from previous works and projects and on the extensive participatory approach with representatives from CRFSI, industry, government, universities, and research institutes, a sustainability scoring system for City-Region Food System Initiatives is developed. It is composed by 10 social, 11 economic and 15 environmental KPIs is one of the first of its kind to integrate the social, economic, and environmental pillars in a holistic, transparent, and accessible manner, resulting in a single sustainability scoring.

To identify potential strengths, and weaknesses, the scoring system was then tested in more than 100 case studies in ten European countries. When testing it, from a general perspective, the single sustainability average score among the three pillars (3.30 out of 5 ±0.07) of the selected CRFSI highlights a superior level from the average for the sustainability scoring. Results are characterized by a large degree of comparability across scales, and food sectors confirming the key role of the present mechanism in offering a unique innovative step for the European CRFSI evaluation. Overall, the social dimension seems to be the most highscoring pillar for CRFSI (3.39±0.11), followed by the economic dimension (3.37±0.09) and the environmental one (3.15±0.10). However, such scores slightly vary concerning the different geographical areas investigated.

With the present work, the CRFSI stakeholders are offered an operational scoring system that guides them through the sustainability assessment process, providing science-based support for policy planning and decision making in the city and region food system domain. Within the FoodE project, this work will also contribute to support processes of business model innovations in the FoodE pilots and FoodE label certification standard, for the integrated sustainability of products. Moreover, the scoring system will be implemented in the FoodE App, to help CRFSI evaluating their sustainability performance and increase their visibility in the CRFS context. Further refinements of the sustainability scoring system will be advisable, with the contributions of stakeholders and researchers, tailoring it to capture additional CRFSI specificities, without endangering the comparability of results. Additionally, future development can strengthen its matching with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals supporting its progress tracking by a quantitative tool.

Declarations of interest: none

Figure 2 andFigure 3 -Figure 1 -

 231 Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the total sustainability score and the score per pillar of the 100 CRFSI tested, on average and in different countries. Overall, the single average score among the three sustainability pillars is 3.30±0.36. Considering the 1-5

Figure 4 -

 4 Figure 4 -Social Impact Categories (IC) scoring for the surveyed CRFSI (n=100)

Figure 6 -

 6 Figure 6 -Economic Impact Categories (IC) scoring for the surveyed CRFSI (n=100)

Figure 8 -

 8 Figure 8 -Environmental Impact Categories (IC) scoring for the surveyed CRFSI (n=100)

Figure 9 -

 9 Figure 9 -Environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) scoring for the surveyed CRFSI (n=100) J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f

Table 1 -

 1 FoodE stakeholder board composition

		J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f
	Country	PAs	Schools	CRFSI	Civil Society	Researchers	Total
	France	2	2	2	2	2	10
	Italy	1	8	5	4	1	19
	Netherlands	0	2	3	0	1	6
	Norway	1	1	1	0	0	3
	Romania	0	2	6	0	1	9
	Slovenia	1	2	1	1	0	5
	Spain	8	19	3	5	3	38
	Germany	2	1	0	3	3	9

Table 2 -

 2 Social, economic and environmental Impact Categories, Key Performance Indicators with the code, the description and unit of measure

	Social

J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o fJournal Pre-proof

Acknowledgments:

The authors thank all partners in the FoodE consortium for their collaboration. Funding: This work was supported by the funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [grant agreement No 862663]. The publication reflects the author's views. The Research Executive Agency (REA) is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Code KPI

Code Description Unit