This web-based toolkit is a response to feedback from International Confederation of Dietetics Associations (ICDA) members as part of ICDA’s Food Sustainability Initiative, which is summarized in this report, “Building Common Ground”. In it, Dietitians-Nutritionists (D-Ns) shared their vision for Sustainable Food Systems (SFS), and told us that while most nutrition and dietetics professionals feel it is important to contribute to SFS, but they face several barriers in doing so.

• One of the barriers was a professional culture that does not support inclusion of sustainability in practice.
• A second barrier was the lack of a common vision and language to orient actions.

For these two barriers, supporting tools are necessary, and this toolkit is intended to facilitate learning and collaboration among ICDA members. For an overview of the SFS toolkit and ideas how to use it visit the homepage.

Our Vision: 

Dietitians-Nutritionists bring a deep understanding of SFS into their practice. Access to a range of practical, evidence-based and context-specific tools and resources supports all Dietitians-Nutritionists in making positive contributions to sustainability. Dietitians-Nutritionists play key roles in creating healthy communities and accelerating a shift towards SFS. 

Our Objectives: 

1. To provide accessible, relevant and transferable information on the interconnections of SFS and human health 
2. To provide practical, evidence-based tools for incorporating sustainability into dietetic practice in a diversity of roles and cultural contexts 
3. To facilitate peer-learning and collaboration to deepen understanding and support incorporation of sustainability into dietetic practice

Our Guiding Principles:

In developing this toolkit, we use the following guiding principles: 

• Sustainability: using systems approaches that consider environmental, social, and economic impacts and strive for health, resilience, and continuity in all these systems 
• Transparency: reflecting on and striving to be explicit about our assumptions, perspectives, and social locations 
• Equity: actively seeking to recognize, acknowledge, and strive to address power dynamics including those embedded in systems of knowledge  
• Evidence-based: critical, ongoing evaluation of sources of knowledge and perspectives
• Diversity: reflective of a range of geographic, linguistic, cultural, social, and ecological contexts as well as diverse epistemological and methodological approaches  
• Dynamism: responsive to changes in our understanding of health and sustainability
• Curiosity: spirit of openness towards continual learning and growth   

While we have curated the resources and interpreted their strengths and weaknesses, we recognize this is based on our perspectives. Therefore, we strive to be transparent about sources to support you to critically assess the quality, relevance and applicability of the resources in your own context(s).

Feedback? Questions? Ideas? Contact the ICDA SFS Coordinator:  ICDAsfs.coordinator@acadiau.ca

About The Team

The ICDA SFS Toolkit is for us and mostly by us. We are thankful for the non-members that have contributed to and use the toolkit. As we collect and curate information, we always have our members in mind and the wide variety of Dietetics roles that they have.

The SFS Toolkit is guided by the ICDA Board of Directors, managed by the Coordination team, and contributed to by a wide array of members, researchers, and students.

ICDA Board of Directors

All of the work on sustainability has been supported with ICDA funding and high-level decision making from the ICDA Board of Directors. Visit the ICDA website to read more.

The links to the team members go to their LinkedIn accounts as ICDA uses LinkedIn for communication as well.

Coordination Team

Gratitude to the ICDA SFS Toolkit Advisory Team

This toolkit was developed with feedback and support from a team of international Advisors, many of whom still provide input as the #ICDAsfsToolkit continues to develop and improve as we work together towards our SFS Vision!

Feedback? Questions? Ideas? Contact the ICDA SFS Coordinator:  ICDAsfs.coordinator@acadiau.ca