KCCI's 'Wave' Initiative Leads to 45kg Reduction in Food Waste

Idea Proposal, Development, and Execution Through Collective Intelligence

#1. I asked Wave, "I heard that Korea produces 5 million tons of eumsseu (food waste) alone. What can we do about it?" The Korean startup Nubylab suggested this: “How about Food Scan? If you hold your tray up to a scanner in the cafeteria, it shows the nutritional content, calories of the food you are about to eat, and the nutrients you consumed yesterday.” Naturally, people take only as much as they can eat. In fact, the amount of leftover food per day at institutions using this scanner has been reduced to 45 kg.

#2. "I heard that 1.2 million tons of discarded fishing nets are left unattended worldwide every year. What about haesseu (marine waste)?" The social venture Netspa responded: “We can extract nylon from discarded fishing nets. Nylon can be used to make clothes and car parts.” In addition, Busan City and large corporations (LG Chem, Hyosung TNC) have stepped forward, saying, “We will create a haesseu resource circulation system that collects, separates, processes the material, and manufactures products from discarded fishing nets.”

Food Scan Example [Photo by Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry]

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced on the 17th that it officially launched the solution platform “Wave” to jointly consider solutions to humanity’s challenges with hopes of attracting the 2030 Expo to Busan.

The KCCI explained that the platform was created with the intention of gathering ideas from people around the world on various global issues. The proposal to create an Expo that allows continuous discussions beyond time and space is one of the differentiating points of the Busan Expo. On this platform, users can present creative ideas and use new technologies to seek solutions or clues to current challenges.

A KCCI official said, “Wave is an attempt to move away from the traditional Expo model of building magnificent architecture and national pavilions for six months to attract tourists,” adding, “It aims to realize a permanent Expo as a digital platform where humanity’s problems are discussed and communicated together.”

Wave is a voluntary solution platform where collective intelligence proposes, develops, and implements ideas. Participation is simple. You can write posts on topics of interest to raise awareness, express agreement with others’ posts, and provide opinions or solutions through comments. There is no language barrier as automatic translation is supported.

Wave homepage [Image source=KCCI]

The process of problem-solving can also be monitored in real time. In the upcoming “Wave Now,” proposals and solutions will be matched. Matching basically occurs when companies or institutions with solutions directly comment on proposals or when companies suggest technologies they want to promote in response.

During the trial operation period, more than 30 interesting solutions have been posted and are about to be implemented, including ways to reduce food waste and marine waste, mangrove forest restoration projects, recycling of agricultural byproducts (Cocoberry), hotel waste bedding upcycling (HiCycle), and construction waste reduction (Tobos).

Wave homepage [Image source=Wave]

Jason Schenker, selected by Bloomberg as “the world’s most accurate financial forecaster and futurist,” along with foreign broadcasters Julian Quintart, Daniel Lindemann, and Anupam Tripathi, are participating as ambassadors. One hundred domestic and international influencers have been selected as supporters to help spread the word.

An online showcase introducing the purpose, structure, and functions of Wave will be held from 4 p.m. on the same day. At the end of this month, a metaverse exhibition hall titled “History of World Expo,” themed on major past Expos, will open. It will be accessible later through the website as a digital archive.

Since last month, the official Instagram account has been operated to encourage interest and participation in global issues. An image depicting wildfires shaped like kangaroos received over 20,000 likes. The post evokes memories of the large-scale Australian wildfires that lasted six months and has been praised for raising awareness about climate change.

Woo Tae-hee, Vice Chairman of the KCCI, said, “Wave aims to be a global community where governments, companies, citizens, NGOs, and other stakeholders worldwide come together to solve humanity’s problems,” and urged, “We ask Korean businesspeople to actively promote the better world that Wave will create.”

Vice Chairman Woo added, “If Busan wins the bid for the 2030 Expo, it will be the first attempt to create a sustainable Expo,” and said, “We will develop Wave well, successfully host the Busan Expo, and pass it on to the next host country so that it can become a seed of hope for future generations.”