Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production

Green, Ashley; Nemecek, Thomas; Chaudhary, Abhishek; Mathys, Alexander

doi:10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100406

Cited by 79 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…The reason for this is twofold. The first is because by far the largest proportion of blue and green water consumption of products occurs at this first supply chain stage, whereas further supply chain steps account for only small consumptive water uses [14,21]. The second is because including all steps requires more data and specifications on global supply chains.…”

Section: ] •mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Water Resources for Sustainable Healthy Diets: State of the Art and Outlook

Vanham

2020

Water

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Sustainable healthy diets are high on the research and policy agendas. One of the crucial resources to provide such diets are water resources. This paper provides a brief overview of the current research state regarding this topic, with a focus on the water footprint concept, as latter quantifies water use along a supply chain. The water footprint (WF) quantifies blue and green water consumption, as both these water resources are essential for food and energy production as well as for the environment. Different kinds of information are embedded in a dietary WF and different data sources and modelling approaches exist, leading to WF dietary amounts that are not always directly comparable. A full sustainability assessment of a dietary WF encompasses three components: (1) an equity assessment of the total WF amount; (2) an efficiency assessment for each food item in the diet as well as (3) an impact assessment (blue water stress and green water scarcity) for each food item in the diet. The paper concludes with an outlook on future research on the topic, listing the following points: (1) future clarity in system boundary and modelling assumptions, with comparison of results between different approaches; (2) full sustainability assessments including all three components; (3) dietary footprint family assessments with the WF as one member; (4) WF assessments for multiple dietary regimes with support to the development of local dietary guidelines and (5) assessment of the synergies with LCA-based mid-point (scarcity-weighted WF) and end-point (especially human health) indicators and evaluation of the validity and empirical significance of these two indicators

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Section: ] •mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For individual food products, WFs have been assessed along the whole supply chain. Within life cycle assessment (LCA), which is product-and impact-oriented, assessments for individual products are common [21], although not always based on detailed geospatial data [22].…”

Section: ] •mentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Resources for Sustainable Healthy Diets: State of the Art and Outlook

Vanham

2020

Water

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“…4. How can specific methods to quantitatively assess production and consumption systems, such as life cycle assessments (Cucurachi et al 2019;Green et al 2020;Notarnicola et al 2017), be turned into practical use for building more sustainable agri-food systems?…”

Section: Aims and Scopementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability in agri-food systems: transformative trajectories toward the post-Anthropocene

Keck

2021

Sustain Sci

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BackgroundCurrent agri-food systems cause severe environmental, socioeconomic, and health-related problems. The ways how food and other agricultural goods are produced, marketed, consumed, and disposed of are leading drivers of environmental degradation and climate change (Campbell et al. 2017;Weis 2010). At the same time, large-scale profit-oriented agri-food corporations exploit economically underprivileged workers and thus help intensifying socioeconomic divides and deprivation in our societies, accompanied by increasing rates of malnutrition and ill-health through unbalanced diets (Gordon et al. 2017;Lindgren et al. 2018;Winson and Choi 2017). Against this background, business as usual is no longer an option. Change is needed, and this change must necessarily be based on bold theoretical thinking and practical economic transformation.This Special Feature gathers scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines and provides them a space for presenting innovative empirical case studies and critical theoretical reflections that together help rethinking how sustainability in agri-food systems can be achieved. The essential idea is to illustrate possibilities of creating agri-food systems that foster biodiversity, provide involved practitioners with prestigious jobs and decent income, and enable consumers to access healthy diets at reasonable prices while reducing society's material and energy footprint. The presented papers will advance existing conceptual approaches, debate innovative practical solutions and stimulate new forms of thinking and doing to extend the debate about sustainability and to open up routes out of the Anthropocene as "human dominated geological epoch" (Lewis and Maslin 2015: 171).

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“…Considering that food comes from the use of natural, and often common, resources such as water and soil, and having food is considered a right in the modern world [52,53], the sustainable production [54][55][56] and consumption [57,58] of food have become pressing problems in order to reach sustainable development. As with any other problem that affects the future of humanity, the change of patterns for both production and consumption of food have strong policy implications, either at the global level, with more general recommendations such as the Sustainable Development Goals [14] or at the regional level, with more applied actions [59].…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influencing Factors of a Sustainable Vegetable Choice. The Romanian Consumers’ Case

Lădaru

Ilie²,

Diaconeasa

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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The behavior of vegetable consumption in the context of sustainable development has become a point of interest. Determining the barriers and the drivers for developing a sustainable consumption pattern, including food, should be a priority for every nation, as so to be able to design targeted food policies that would contribute to this development. Reducing the pressure on resources by diminishing meat consumption and increasing vegetable consumption is one of the global directions that should be followed. The situation of the current status of vegetable consumption in Romania is, therefore, important. Through an empirical quantitative analysis, the vegetable consumption pattern of Romanian consumers is presented. The results show that the respondents lack proper environmental education and concern, but unconsciously are aware of sustainability criteria such as choosing local and seasonal vegetables, choosing according to the freshness of the vegetables, and wasting little of these purchases. The main barriers determined in developing more sustainable vegetable choices in the case of Romanian consumers are income and time availability restrictions. It is also important to have the ability to identify the local, seasonal, and organic vegetables through specific labels, and to provide the local producers with the ability to sell their products in supermarkets, at fair prices. These would be the main drivers for developing a sustainable vegetable choice. Adding to that, an awareness campaign at the national level regarding the importance of individual choice would contribute to educating towards a sustainable purchasing pattern.

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Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production

Cited by 79 publications

References 91 publications

Water Resources for Sustainable Healthy Diets: State of the Art and Outlook

Water Resources for Sustainable Healthy Diets: State of the Art and Outlook

Sustainability in agri-food systems: transformative trajectories toward the post-Anthropocene

Influencing Factors of a Sustainable Vegetable Choice. The Romanian Consumers’ Case

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