An assessment of the water use associated with Australian diets using a planetary boundary framework

Ridoutt, Bradley G.; Baird, Danielle; Anastasiou, Kim; Hendrie, Gilly A.

doi:10.1017/s1368980021000483

Cited by 14 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Similarly, a planetary boundary for global freshwater use of 2800 km 3 per year has been proposed [51]. On average, Australian adult diets have been found to be well within this boundary [52].…”

Section: Diets and The Climate Change Planetary Boundarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Diets within Environmental Limits: The Climate Impact of Current and Recommended Australian Diets

2021

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Planetary boundaries are an important sustainability concept, defining absolute limits for resource use and emissions that need to be respected to avoid major and potentially irreversible earth system change. To remain within the safe operating space for humanity, there is a need for urgent adoption of climate-neutral diets, which make no additional contribution to warming. In the first study of its kind, a new climate metric, the Global Warming Potential Star (GWP*), was used to assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with 9341 Australian adult diets obtained from the Australian Health Survey. Dietary climate footprints averaged 3.4 kg CO2-equivelent per person per day, with total energy intake explaining around one quarter of the variation. Energy-dense and nutrient-poor discretionary foods contributed around one third. With lower climate footprint food choices, a diet consistent with current Australian dietary guidelines had a 42% lower climate footprint. Currently, it is not possible to define a climate-neutral dietary strategy in Australia because there are very few climate-neutral foods in the Australian food system. To bring Australian diets into line with the climate stabilization goals of the Paris Agreement, the most important need is for innovation across the agricultural and food processing industries to expand the range of climate-neutral foods available.

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Section: Diets and The Climate Change Planetary Boundarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Diets within Environmental Limits: The Climate Impact of Current and Recommended Australian Diets

2021

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“…body mass index) or environmental health impacts, would better capture other correlations between diet and disease risk in LCA 44,64,65 . HENI could potentially integrate other essential food functions, such as satiety, social and cultural aspects, nutrient bioavailability and affordability [65][66][67][68] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimised diets for improving human, animal, and environmental health in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolis in Germany

Escobar

Falkenberg

Gupta

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Dietary shifts are needed to align the global food systems with the planetary boundaries and contribute to Sustainable Development Goals. We employed a Life Cycle Assessment framework, extended with indicators reflecting the One Health approach, to assess 2020 food consumption data collected through a survey in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolis (Germany). Feasible optimisation scenarios representing more sustainable food choices were explored, inducing improvements across human, animal and environmental health. Meat and meat products contributed most to overall environmental impacts and fish and seafood, to animal welfare loss. Sodium intake was the most contributing risk factor for life minutes lost. Reducing 55% of greenhouse gas emissions and improving human health indicators by 25% is possible with a shift towards flexitarian and vegetarian dietary scenarios. These optimisations deliver improvements across One Health dimensions with marginal changes in dietary scenarios and align with the sustainability goals of the EU Green Deal.

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“…Environmental data for individual foods within the Australian food system were obtained from previous studies. These data, derived from life-cycle assessments, included the water-scarcity footprint [ 57 ], climate footprint [ 54 ], cropland-scarcity footprint [ 53 ], and pesticide-toxicity footprint [ 55 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diets with Higher Vegetable Intake and Lower Environmental Impact: Evidence from a Large Australian Population Health Survey

2022

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Increasing the consumption of vegetables is a public health nutrition priority in Australia. This must be achieved in the context of lowering dietary environmental impacts. In this study, a subgroup of 1700 Australian adult daily diets having a higher diet-quality score and a lower environmental impact score was isolated from Australian Health Survey data. These diets were primarily distinguished by their lower content of energy-dense/nutrient-poor discretionary foods. Among these diets, those with higher levels of vegetable intake were characterized by greater variety of vegetables eaten, lower intake of bread and cereal foods, and higher intake of red meat. These diets also had a greater likelihood of achieving recommended intakes for a range of vitamins and minerals. These findings highlighted the importance of considering the total diet in developing strategies to promote healthy and sustainable food consumption, as well as the need to understand the interrelationships between foods that exist in a local cultural context. As vegetables are usually eaten with other foods, higher vegetable consumption in Australia could be supported by encouraging more regular consumption of the types of meals that include larger quantities of vegetables. Our results showed that this was possible while also substantially lowering total dietary environmental impacts.

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An assessment of the water use associated with Australian diets using a planetary boundary framework

Cited by 14 publications

References 34 publications

Diets within Environmental Limits: The Climate Impact of Current and Recommended Australian Diets

Diets within Environmental Limits: The Climate Impact of Current and Recommended Australian Diets

Optimised diets for improving human, animal, and environmental health in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolis in Germany

Diets with Higher Vegetable Intake and Lower Environmental Impact: Evidence from a Large Australian Population Health Survey

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