Moving towards ecologically sustainable diets: Lessons from an Italian box delivery scheme

Abstract

Conscious of the nutritional failings of the current food systems, there has been a call in the last decade or so to move beyond sustainable consumption and towards sustainable diets defined as healthy diets that also optimize the environment, food quality, socio‐cultural values, the economy and governance. Previous studies have shown how local food initiatives can lead to greater levels of sustainable consumption and healthier diets and have focused on the key role played by the conscious‐consumer. Analysing various types of local food initiatives—from community‐oriented to more private‐run activities—they have described the processes that local food initiatives set in motion to empower conscious‐consumers and to ultimately change habits and routines. Taking the specific case of a business‐oriented box delivery scheme in Italy, the article sheds further light on the mechanisms that enable clients to consume in more sustainable and healthier ways, with a central role played by learning, commitment and empowerment. Obstacles however exist in the form of the way people's everyday lives are structured, and the competing values that people draw upon in making their food choices. Support is therefore needed from public institutions to make it easier for people to choose healthier and more sustainable food provisioning systems.

Food governance for better access to sustainable diets: A review

“…Regarding sustainable diets, most authors from group 2 agreed that a multi-criteria approach should be adopted when defining them, giving equal importance to health and environment, but also to sociocultural issues, preferences and values, socioeconomic wellbeing, diet quality and equitable access (Downs et al, 2017;Mattioni and Caraher, 2018;Béné et al, 2019;Melesse et al, 2020;Delabre et al, 2021;. Is it necessary then to focus on other aspects besides health and the environmental impact?…”

“…As mentioned in the introduction to this review, "agency" is an approach to food security that fits and rightly emphasizes the sustainability of food systems based on the power of people to govern them according to their own values and beliefs and to determine their own agricultural and food policy, organize their production and consumption to meet local needs and secure access to land, water and seed (Chappell, 2018). However, only two papers (Mattioni and Caraher, 2018;Galli et al, 2020a) mentioned "agency" as a relevant concept in food and nutrition security discussion when analyzing sustainable diets.…”

“…Category Studies 1 Sustainability focused on the environmental dimension Hawkes and Popkin, 2015;Hunter et al, 2016;Pott et al, 2016;Kennedy et al, 2017;Blay-Palmer et al, 2018;Zurek et al, 2018;Lawrence et al, 2019;Swinburn et al, 2019;De Schutter et al, 2020;Dupouy and Gurinovic, 2020;Détang-Dessendre et al, 2020;Galli et al, 2020a;Graça et al, 2018;Lee et al, 2020;Leip et al, 2021;Parker et al, 2021;Vermeulen et al, 2020;Balázs et al, 2021. 2 Environmental and sociocultural aspects Lang, 2014;Mattioni and Caraher, 2018;Allen et al, 2019Berry, 2019Béné et al, 2019;Downs et al, 2017;Galli et al, 2020b;Hawkes, 2007;Calistri et al, 2013;Melesse et al, 2020;Delabre et al, 2021; 3 FAO definition Lang and Barling, 2013;Lang and Mason, 2018;Lundqvist and Unver, 2018;Boylan et al, 2019Boylan et al, , 2020. and coherence are commonly described as a way in which actions from different sectors converge to meet public health and sustainability objectives, and a proper environment as a product of governance is key to achieve that (Graça et al, 2018;De Schutter et al, 2020;Farmery et al, 2020).…”