PLOUTOS

The implementation of the emblematic PLOUTOS project commenced on October 2020 with GAIA EPICHEIREIN leading a powerful European consortium of 32 important partners from the broader agri-food sector: representatives of producers and the food industry, IT companies, consultancy firms, research bodies, etc.

The main objective of Ploutos project is to help re-balance the agri food value chain and enhance its sustainability by establishing a Sustainable Innovation Framework.

Ploutos aims to create opportunities for changes that can rebalance the value chain in the agri-food system towards a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable system. Until recently approaches to the agri-food system focused on narrow segments of the overall value chain. Ploutos will take a systems-based approach looking at the overall impact of changes at any point in the value chain, thereby enabling a more comprehensive and in depth understanding. To achieve that Ploutos will use the Sustainable Innovative Framework!

Sustainable Innovation Framework

Ploutos Sustainable Innovation Framework is powered by the combination of behaviour innovation, collaborative business model innovation and data driven technological services. For inspiring behavioural innovation, Ploutos will build on the understanding that real change towards increased sustainability performance and cooperation in the agri-food chain, requires going beyond technology-focused innovations. For the collaborative business model innovation Ploutos will develop a reusable approach to guide the design, assessment, commitment and effectuation of business models that address the complex requirements of re-balancing the agri-food ecosystem. Finally, for the technological services Ploutos will focus on reusing and extending technologies which make the new business models possible and enable greater and more effective flow of data to farmers (such as advisory services) and from farmers (producing data services). The framework is supported by a vibrant ecosystem and follows up a multi actor approach with partners’ representatives from the overall agri-food value chain. The mechanism for supporting the implementation of innovative approaches arising from these three dimensions of the Sustainable Innovation Framework will be the Ploutos Innovation Academy.

Ploutos Innovation Academy

In the framework of the project, a virtual academy under the name “Ploutos Innovation Academy”, will be created to provide stakeholders with a series of experiments and practices regarding the sustainability of the agri-food value chain. The abovementioned experiments and practices will be designed, implemented and assessed within the context of the eleven Sustainable Innovation Pilots of the project. The Academy will be the mechanism to co-design, support, present and promote all the innovations that will be implemented and its main role is to guarantee the maximum impact of these innovative practices.