The project is implemented through interconnected set of activities organized into four main work packages (WP) for the focal activities, and into two supporting WPs for communication and management.

SustainIT Living Labs (WP1) provide the platform for the stakeholder engagement. The Living Labs are set up in the four participating countries (Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Germany) and will engage various value network stakeholders like farmers, ICT developers, technology providers, veterinarians, processing industry, retailers, public policy makers, consumers and researchers. This multi-actor approach will bring together insights and knowledge of different actors, create new understanding on the pressures and challenges on different stakeholders, and will create a basis for mutual learning and co-creation of new solutions and networks. 

Animal health and welfare data (WP2) focuses on analysis of the availability of data on animal health and welfare in the four countries, on the assessment of the existing structures, data collection, technologies, data access and exchange approaches, identification of the data needs of different supply chain actors.    

Business model development (WP3) will address the consumer and societal demands and new conceptual business models. The research will focus on analysing the opportunities and barriers related to connecting producers with the end-consumers, and on capturing the value from the customers. This will be utilized by addressing the business model innovation related to ICT in dairy and beef value chains.

Public sector interactions (WP4) encompass the role of public sector in pooling of the data, in facilitating or hindering the access to animal health and welfare data and in regulating and supporting the development of the ICT innovation ecosystem for agri-food sector.

The Living Labs have two-layered structure in the project:

• Partners of the consortium form the core research team for the Living Labs in their country. The teams will set the research questions for the Living Labs and select the research approaches, organize and facilitate the stakeholder engagement activities in the Living Labs settings, document the process and outcomes.
• County Living Labs are multi-stakeholder platforms that refer to the stakeholder group and their collaboration activities that will focus on the ICT adoption challenges, opportunities, and solutions providing both inputs and feedback to core research team.

Activities on the development and implementation of the Living Labs are led by the team from the Technical University of Munich.  In the first half of 2021, the activities of the Living Labs concentrated on:

• Elaboration of the concept, methodology and documentation procedures.
• Training and coaching the consortium partners and Living Lab leaders in thinking in new ways, networking, managing non-linear knowledge flows, change and innovations. A training workshop was held for the partners on coaching and team building on 16-17 June 2021.
• Setting up the Living Labs frameworks by starting with stakeholder engagements, setting schedule for further stakeholder meetings.

The training kicked off by addressing how to create an environment conducive to thinking and coaching. As the Living Labs engage stakeholders with very different backgrounds and various and sometimes conflicting interests, the role of the partners is to facilitate the interactions while creating a productive and safe environment for exchange of ideas. The aim of the coaching is to support the individuals or teams in reaching their goals by encouraging their learning, thinking, skills development. This requires skills for listening the coachees and asking them powerful questions in order to develop their understanding on their goals and the path to reach those. The topic of feedback covered both giving and receiving constructive feedback. The team building requires establishing the shared goals and tasks and matching those with learning, resources and responsibilities.