The things we buy are often judged very strictly: are they healthy, fair, sustainable, safe, respectful? How all those things actually make their way to us remains mostly hidden. Online sellers like to make it seem as if the final click to purchase magically coincides with a knock on the door from the delivery driver. And supermarkets give the impression that everything is made right there on the spot. That, of course, is not true.
There is an entire logistics system that brings products from producer to consumer, from farm to fork, or from seamstress to wardrobe. In Belgium, tens of thousands of people work in this sector, which in urban neighbourhoods is responsible for one in seven vehicle trips and a quarter of CO₂ emissions. But what does that have to do with me?
No one exactly knows. As a citizen or consumer, it’s hard to see where my choices matter — and which choices I even have. The sector relies on many private actors who work on the same thing but rarely together. Even governments struggle to get a grip on it.
To better understand the system — at the scale of the Marolles, to keep it manageable — we are taking several initiatives. We have already spoken with hundreds of people about how they experience the logistics system (Logicienne). In the next step, we want to understand what people find important in all this, and how those priorities relate to the choices they make every day.
To help us do that, we are building a mechanical computer. A machine that, based on four multiple‑choice questions, calculates what kind of person you are within the logistics landscape. It’s not a judgement telling you how to do better in the future, nor a test to see whether you belong to the logistics elite. It’s a way to discover how, through our everyday choices, we manage to act on the things we say we care about. The first version of the machine is programmed using the conversations we had in the neighbourhood and with experts. Using it will lead to improved versions.
Based on the insights from conversations and what the computer teaches us, we will develop an alternative. We suspect that by doing certain things together, the logistical pressure on our neighbourhood can be reduced. How? We don’t know yet. For now, we’re drawing inspiration from a dozen pioneers who are already trying to do things differently.
cover image © Michaël De Lausnay
