The rapidly growing population and increasing urbanization have created the need to produce more food and transport it safely to urban areas where the majority of global consumers live. Open-field agriculture and food distribution systems have a lot of food waste, and, in parallel, the largest percentage of available arable land is already occupied. In most cases, food produced by compatible agricultural methods needs to be frozen and travel several miles until it reaches the consumer, with high amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by this process, making it an unsustainable method with huge amounts of CO₂ emissions related with fresh food products. This research contains an extensive literature review based on 165 international publications (from 2006–2022) describing and analyzing the efficiency and impact of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) methods, and more precisely, greenhouses (GHs) and vertical farms (VFs), in the environmental footprint of food production and consumption. Based on various publications, we could draw the conclusion that VFs could highly influence a greener transition to the sustainability of urban consumption with reduced CO₂ emissions sourcing from food transportation and limited post-harvest processes. However, there is a significant demand for further energy efficiency, specifically when it comes to artificial lighting operations inside VFs. A large-scale implementation of VFs that operate with renewable energy sources (RES) could lead to significant urban decarbonization by providing the opportunity for integrated energy–food nexus systems. Under this direction, VFs could optimize the way that cities interact with meeting the food and energy demand in densely urbanized areas.

In recent years, a new urban environment in the large metropolitan areas, the so-called “megacities”, has emerged. It is estimated that more than five billion people will be located in urban areas by 2030. Many projects have been initiated in the megacities to support the new ecosystem services in providing the most sustainable and efficient food supply solutions, as well as for transporting fresh and clean vegetables. One of the most important focus areas is research on energy sustainability, including how to optimize energy efficiency to meet the needs of citizens and companies. Indoor urban vertical farming (IUVF) is one of the greatest achievements of our time in agriculture, as it is entirely focused on meeting the food needs of people living in urban areas with the lowest environmental and energy costs. IUVF creates a new foundation in the urban food production system, providing opportunities for many other sustainable activities, such as energy and grey water recycling, but beyond all, it helps citizens to have access in fresh and nutritious fruits and vegetables and to become more creative building up their skills regarding sustainable food production. In this study, the internal rate of return (IRR) and the net present value (NPV) indexes were used to compare IUVF and greenhouse (GH) facilities under various financing schemes. Consistent with similar studies, this research also confirms that IUVF is much more profitable for investors, saving significant resources compared to GHs.

Producing food via vertical farming (VF) is an efficient method since it requires less space with increased yield per unit area. Such a system can assist in solving major food-shortage problems since it presents a higher crop yield per unit area compared to conventional farming. Thus, VF can be seen as a production method that can cope with the challenge of the constantly growing population, making it also possible to cultivate crops in regions with adverse climate conditions. However, the public might be concerned about the sustainability of VF systems since plants are produced in an unconventional setting. Therefore, there is a need to consider and evaluate the consumers’ acceptance of VF. The particular study attempts to both analyse consumer acceptance of VF in the Nordic areas and offer insights into VF acceptance among young customers in a comparative analysis. The results indicated that VF is not widely accepted by young Nordic consumers. The concept of sustainability is one of the principles driving forces behind consumer acceptance of vertical farms. The more cases of vertical farms in European cities, the better seems to be the level of acceptance among young customers and their willingness to purchase their products.

Vertical farming is a novel type of food production in indoor environments with artificial lighting and controlled cultivation conditions. In this context, sustainability in small-scale indoor cultivation systems is crucial. Sustainability can be achieved by optimizing all the cultivation factors involved in the production process. The effects of different photoperiod conditions under different timing during plant development—from sowing to germination and maturity—have been studied in a small-scale indoor cultivation area. The main objective of this research was to investigate the possibilities of an optimized photoperiod for basil plants to reduce the energy demand cost of the cultivation unit. Three different photoperiod treatments (P8D16L, P10D14L, and P11D13L) were applied to basil plants with stable light intensity. Furthermore, the photoperiod was shortened to test the reaction of the biomass from the plants in a reduced energy demand system. The dry biomass produced was measured along with the energy consumed in each treatment. The basil quality was assessed by measuring different physiological indices, such as chlorophyll a (Chl a), chlorophyll b (Chl b), total chlorophyll (Chl tot), the fraction of photosynthetically active irradiance absorbed by the leaf, and leaf temperature. The results of the study showed that a shorter photoperiod did not negatively affect the quantity and quality of the basil plants. Continuously, the evaluation of the energy demand variation under the different photoperiod treatments can provide a significant positive impact on the energetic, ecological, and economic aspects of small-scale food production.

This study demonstrates the potential of using low-altitude multispectral imagery data to assess irrigation and fertilization techniques and the relative degree of plant water and nutrient stress. This study aims to create a methodology that can be widely used by vertical farms. Techniques were used for early water and nitrogen stress detection using multispectral reflectance systems in an indoor environment with artificial lighting. The methodology focuses on irrigation and nutrition, that sets schedules, and automatically updates a decision-making system based on crop reflectance data and simplified reflectance indices. The experimental process took place on the premises of CphFarmHouse in Denmark. The results showed that crop reflectance increased due to water and nitrogen deficiencies. The detected reflectance increase was significant on the third day of the experiment when irrigation and fertilization were not applied. It should be noted that during the experimental period, the researchers did not detect water or nitrogen deficiencies visible to the naked eye. More specifically, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI) showed statistically significant differences between the control treatment and the two stress treatments with limited water and nitrogen. Additionally, based on the reflectance measurements and the measured physiological crop parameters, significant correlations (p < 0.01) were observed mainly between the PRI and the chlorophyll content, the photosynthetic efficiency and the stomatal conductance (r = 0.84/0.90, 0.73/0.66, 0.61/0.66 among the nitrogen and water treatments). The research provides data analysis results on sensors and approaches for crop reflectance measurements as well as spectral indices for remote water and nitrogen detection. Finally, the results provide a feasibility analysis, suggesting that multispectral images could be used as a rapid tool to estimate the physiological status of plants, which is indicative of the spatial variation in the vertical farm.