Green Minds Gather 2025 – Copenhagen

On April 29-30 2025, the START Center for Sustainable Agrifood Systems, Novo Nordisk Foundation and Copenhagen Business School welcomed highly engaged participants to Green Minds Gather 2025 to further the dialogue and start hacking the key challenges of the agrifood sector.

Green Minds Gather 2025 (April 29-30) brought together 500 key stakeholders; Danish and international researchers, practitioners from the agrifood industry and policymakers from Denmark and the EU and all academic disciplines were invited to collaborate in addressing the current challenges, shaping key questions, and expanding our vision for the future.

Through high-level keynotes, panels, workshops, poster sessions, demonstrations and networking activities, the conference fostered active engagement and in-depth discussions on the challenges and potential solutions.

Interactive sessions by Amped & VU Amsterdam
Mark Frederiks (Amped & EU4Advice) & Jacqueline Broerse (VU Amsterdam Athena Institute & FoodCLIC / CLEVERFOOD) led the programme’s track ‘Developing Localized Food Systems and Short Food Supply Chains’ with an interactive session on both days.

Over the last decade, an increasing number of European towns and cities have acknowledged the need to radically change their food systems so as to make sustainable and healthy food more available, affordable and attractive to their citizens. One pathway is to stimulate food from local sustainable sources, thereby also increasing urban-rural connections, and building stronger short food supply chains. The required changes in the food system are, however, not easily realized due to systemic barriers that hinder scaling of grassroots initiatives. This track seeked to work towards an integrated, interactive support structure that will empower changemakers and mobilise networks on a co-created pathway towards robust, regional and regenerative food systems;

• The role of cities in food system transformation by Jacqueline Broerse (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Athena Institute and FoodCLIC / CLEVERFOOD) 
• Building an integrated interactive support structure to empower changemakers and mobilize networks by Mark Frederiks (Amped and EU4Advice)
• Break out in roundtables focusing on young talent, networking, IT & blockchain, living labs, co-creation platform
• Integrating the inputs from the break out groups

The track brought together a diversity of experts and industry professionals with very practical and actionable input on the different pathways.

Ecosystem restoration in Denmark
Denmark is actively pursuing ecosystem restoration through initiatives like the Tripartite Agreement, aiming to protect and restore natural environments, particularly low-lying agricultural land. This includes rewilding and reforesting, with the goal of establishing 250,000 hectares of new forest and converting 140,000 hectares of environmentally sensitive farmland into natural areas. The focus is on creating wetlands, meadows, and other habitats to improve biodiversity and reduce emissions. 

Key aspects of Denmark’s ecosystem restoration efforts:

• The Tripartite Agreement
• Rewilding and Reforestation
• Wetland Restoration
• Marine Habitat Restoration
• Dry Grassland Restoration
• Long-Term Management
• Economic and Ecological Balancing Act

John D. Liu: Healing the Earth and the human spirit

John D. Liu is an Ecosystem Restoration Ecologist, writer, journalist and filmmaker. He is an Ecosystems Ambassador for the Commonland Foundation, and founder of the Ecosystem Restoration Communities (full bio).

John was a (‘silent’) keynote speaker on the topic of ecosystem restoration during the breakout session, co-hosted by Maarten Klop of Amped.

John shared inspirational insights into the incredibly practical impacts generated by the global ecosystem restoration movement, and the learnings from decades of operational ecosystem restoration projects to realise scalable solutions, thriving communities and mass participation. Watch our video short (1 min 46 sec) of the lead-in of his presentation: