Putting all foods on the same table: Achieving sustainable food systems requires full accounting

Halpern, Benjamin S.; Cottrell, Richard S.; Blanchard, Julia L.; Bouwman, A. F.; Froehlich, Halley E.; Gephart, Jessica A.; Jacobsen, Nis Sand; Kuempel, Caitlin D.; McIntyre, Peter B.; Métian, Marc; Moran, Daniel; Nash, Kirsty L.; Többen, Johannes; Williams, David

doi:10.1073/pnas.1913308116

Cited by 77 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Information on sustainability properties needs to be clearer to enable consumers to make food choices toward sustainable diets and to allow researchers to measure this parameter of the food environment. Moreover, additional research is needed to elucidate the sustainability properties of many commonly consumed foods specific to the context where they were produced and consumed [182]. Without this information, the incorporation of sustainability properties into food environment assessments will be limited.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Environment Typology: Advancing an Expanded Definition, Framework, and Methodological Approach for Improved Characterization of Wild, Cultivated, and Built Food Environments toward Sustainable Diets

Downs

Ahmed

Fanzo

et al. 2020

Foods

271

295

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The food environment is a critical place in the food system to implement interventions to support sustainable diets and address the global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change, because it contains the total scope of options within which consumers make decisions about which foods to acquire and consume. In this paper, we build on existing definitions of the food environment, and provide an expanded definition that includes the parameter of sustainability properties of foods and beverages, in order to integrate linkages between food environments and sustainable diets. We further provide a graphical representation of the food environment using a socio-ecological framework. Next, we provide a typology with descriptions of the different types of food environments that consumers have access to in low-, middle-, and high-income countries including wild, cultivated, and built food environments. We characterize the availability, affordability, convenience, promotion and quality (previously termed desirability), and sustainability properties of food and beverages for each food environment type. Lastly, we identify a methodological approach with potential objective and subjective tools and metrics for measuring the different properties of various types of food environments. The definition, framework, typology, and methodological toolbox presented here are intended to facilitate scholars and practitioners to identify entry points in the food environment for implementing and evaluating interventions that support sustainable diets for enhancing human and planetary health.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food Environment Typology: Advancing an Expanded Definition, Framework, and Methodological Approach for Improved Characterization of Wild, Cultivated, and Built Food Environments toward Sustainable Diets

Downs

Ahmed

Fanzo

et al. 2020

Foods

271

295

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As we work toward a sustainable and just future, meeting the nutrition demands for a rapidly growing global population (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, 2017) will require culturally appropriate 1 globalfishingwatch.org solutions that are robust to increasing environmental and economic shocks to food systems (Cottrell et al, 2019). Achieving this goal requires better understanding of the ecological and social linkages between food systems to properly assess synergies, trade-offs, and vulnerabilities (Halpern et al, 2019). Further research is required to assess the ecological and human health trade-offs associated with different food sources and diets (Tilman and Clark, 2014;Davis et al, 2016), as well as the costs and benefits of increased trade across different regions and cultures (Puma et al, 2015), including issues of justice and equity in the export of luxury protein (e.g., shrimp/prawns) from proteindeficient to protein-rich societies.…”

Section: Priority Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research Priorities for Achieving Healthy Marine Ecosystems and Human Communities in a Changing Climate

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Friedman et al. Priority Research Healthy Marine Systems major social and ecological events over the past 60 years that shaped current human relationships with coasts and oceans. We then used a modified Delphi approach to identify nine priority research areas and 46 questions focused on increasing sustainability and well-being in marine social-ecological systems. The research areas we identified include relationships between ecological and human health, access to resources, equity, governance, economics, resilience, and technology. Most questions require increased collaboration across traditionally distinct disciplines and sectors for successful study and implementation. By identifying these questions, we hope to facilitate the discourse, research, and policies needed to rapidly promote healthy marine ecosystems and the human communities that depend upon them.

show abstract

“…Maps of individual environmental pressures from specific food sectors exist, 10,11 but cumulative maps are currently lacking. 12 Mapping the location and magnitude of the cumulative environmental footprint of food production is needed to identify hotspots of environmental pressures and potential inefficiencies (i.e., environmental pressure per unit production, Box 1) to inform sustainable policies and practices. Further, accounting for cumulative pressures arising from food production allows evaluation of the most problematic pressures, including those that could lead to unacceptable or avoidable environmental outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,23,24 Methods for conducting regionalized LCAs have recently been proposed, 25 but most LCAs do not describe the fine-scale spatial distribution of environmental pressures (total and per unit production), [26][27][28] which is critical for predicting impacts on ecosystems and improving sustainability. Furthermore, most food LCAs have focused on one or a few relatively well-studied production types and environmental pressures 12 and usually report results per individual pressure at global or national scales. Results from LCAs that use spatially disaggregated input data, such as land-use change, soil erosion, and/or water scarcity, often differ sharply from non-spatially explicit examples, 14,[29][30][31][32][33] highlighting the importance of considering environmental pressures at finer scales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Largely independent of the LCA literature, conservation scientists have also improved our ability to combine and map pressures and impacts of human activities on the environment across spatial scales. 12,15,16 Similar to LCA, a well-documented set of best practices and assumptions for spatial accounting that combine multiple sources of pressure have emerged, including As in many disciplines, numerous terminologies-often conflicting or interchangeable-have been used in the context of environmental impacts. Here, we suggest a four-step structure, based on the terminology described by Judd et al: 13 pressures, pathways, impacts, and pressures per unit production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Integrating Life Cycle and Impact Assessments to Map Food's Cumulative Environmental Footprint

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Feeding a growing, increasingly affluent population while limiting environmental pressures of food production is a central challenge for society. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to addressing this challenge because pressures vary substantially across food production types. Applying data and models from life cycle assessment with the methodologies for mapping cumulative environmental impacts of human activities (hereafter cumulative impact mapping) provides a powerful approach to spatially map the cumulative environmental pressure of food production in a way that is consistent and comprehensive across food types. However, these methodologies have yet to be combined. By synthesizing life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping methodologies, we provide guidance for comprehensively and cumulatively mapping the environmental pressures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, spatial occupancy, and freshwater use) associated with food production systems. This spatial approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which is needed for decision makers to create more sustainable food policies and practices. ll

show abstract

Putting all foods on the same table: Achieving sustainable food systems requires full accounting

Cited by 77 publications

References 17 publications

Food Environment Typology: Advancing an Expanded Definition, Framework, and Methodological Approach for Improved Characterization of Wild, Cultivated, and Built Food Environments toward Sustainable Diets

Food Environment Typology: Advancing an Expanded Definition, Framework, and Methodological Approach for Improved Characterization of Wild, Cultivated, and Built Food Environments toward Sustainable Diets

Research Priorities for Achieving Healthy Marine Ecosystems and Human Communities in a Changing Climate

Integrating Life Cycle and Impact Assessments to Map Food's Cumulative Environmental Footprint

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About