Enviromental – Sustainability

Building a more sustainable food system in Colombia: a role for nutrition professionals (2025)

McCullum-Gomez, C., Castillo Quiroga, Y. M., & Diaz-Beltran, M. (2025). Building a more sustainable food system in Colombia: a role for nutrition professionals. Academia Nutrition and Dietetics, 2(2)

This article describes multiple efforts to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable food system in Colombia, which can contribute to the achievement of climate-, biodiversity-, and health-related goals. These interconnected goals are aligned with Colombia’s plan for sustainable development and food sovereignty, guided by a food systems typology developed by the World Wildlife Fund, Colombia, and through support of the concept known as Buen Vivir.

Public health nutrition professionals can increase food security, build food sovereignty, and facilitate the transition to a more sustainable food system in Colombia through: (1) community food gardening and peri-urban and urban agriculture projects; (2) institutional- and consumer-level food waste reduction and prevention programs; and (3) sustainable menu projects that incorporate indigenous, native, and local foods that facilitate the recovery of food memory. Such projects should be participatory and tailored to meet the needs of stakeholders in the different regions of Colombia.

Planet friendly home-grown school feeding: What does it mean? (Africa, 2024 Jul)

Borelli, T., Nekesa, T., Mbelenga, E., Jumbale, M., Morimoto, Y., Bellanca, R., & Jordan, I. (2023). Planet-friendly home-grown school feeding: What does it mean? World Food Programme. https://www.wfp.org/publications/planet-friendly-home-grown-school-feeding-what-does-it-mean

This research seeks to improve the environmental sustainability of school meals in Sub-Saharan Africa by developing a practical tool to guide Planet Friendly procurement practices and HGSF approaches and support the transition to more sustainable food systems.

School meals present a unique opportunity to tackle the various food system challenges, including the depletion and pollution of natural resources, habitat and biodiversity loss, deforestation, ocean acidification, and climate change while delivering multiple social and economic benefits towards sustainable food systems for healthy diets. Despite these advantages, the approach is challenged by the lack of evaluation tools and metrics that can be used to quantify the level of “planet friendliness” in the different regions where the Home Grown School Feeding approach is applied.

Through evaluation of the current school meal supply chain in Sub-Saharan Africa, this study identifies practices in food production, transport, processing, and storage that may influence the impact of school feeding programs on planetary health. The study initially focuses on three main products supplied to schools by the World Food Program (WFP) – maize, beans, and dark green leafy vegetables – and proposes to focus on general agronomic, food processing, and handling practices.

The assessment undertaken has resulted in an evaluation tool for all of WFP’s farmer-directed procurement processes linked to school feeding. The proposed tool, currently in draft form and yet to be tested, provides information about indicators to be included in food procurement policies and processes for the provision of greener school meals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The tool is intended to simplify the evaluation of current procurement processes and guide future decision-making around school procurement to ensure planetary health considerations are widely adopted to bolster systemic resilience. The tool can serve multiple purposes: as a checklist, a scoring template for refining tenders, a monitoring and evaluation tool, or a foundation for co-creating policies for any school feeding program at the school, local, or national level.

Submitted by Christine McCullum-Gomez, PhD, RDN

School Meal Programs Around the World: Results from the 2024 Global Survey of School Meal Programs: Survey Highlights (2024)

The Global Survey of School Meal Programs was launched in 2019 to gather information about school meal programs in every country in a standardized manner, and it has been repeated every 2-3 years. The survey spans a broad set of topics of relevance to school meals, bringing them together under one umbrella to spotlight their linkages. The 2024 Global Survey of School Meal Programs received a response from 142 country governments, which represents 73% of the 194 countries that were invited to participate in the survey.

School meal programs have the potential to play an important role in food systems transformation. This follows from the aggregate scale of these programs, which reach at least 408.2 million children worldwide and are found in at least 148 countries. It also follows from the programs’ multisectoral nature, with relevance for social protection, education, health and nutrition, agricultural and economic growth, and environmental sustainability. School meal programs touch on each of the key goals of food systems transformation.

Environment and Climate

Sustainability is increasingly prioritized in school meal programs, with countries implementing a variety of initiatives to both limit their environmental vulnerability and reduce their environmental impact. The Global Survey of School Meal Programs captured various indicators of environmental sustainability in school meal programs.

A large majority (81%) of school meal programs took some steps to limit food waste. This was generally more common in lower-income settings, where food tends to be less plentiful.
A majority (67%) of school meal programs also took some steps to limit package waste. Most commonly, these included the re-use of bags/containers (followed by 57% of programs that took some step to limit package waste) and the recycling of packaging materials.
Approximately 58% of school meal programs relied on wood stoves or charcoal stoves for food preparation, and among these, 78.5% took some steps to reduce the use of firewood/charcoal as fuel. Toward this end, the most common step taken was the use of fuel efficient (energy efficient) stoves.
As part of the food system, school meal programs are both affected by, and a driver of, climate change. Nevertheless, just 38% of programs targeted foods that were considered to be “climate friendly”.
On the other hand, a large majority (79%) of programs took some steps to reduce the distance traveled by food from the site of production to consumption (i.e., the food miles/kilometers). Across regions, this emphasis on local procurement was most common in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 89% of programs aimed to reduce the distance traveled by food.

Greener Allied Health Professional Hub: Food & Nutrition (NHS, UK)

The UK National Health Service (NHS) has the third largest clinical workforce in the NHS. Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) play an important role in Delivering a Net Zero NHS, which is the overarching framework.

The “Greener Allied Health Professional (AHP) Hub” aims to provide:

Information on the importance of environmental sustainability for both population health and the health of the environment to provide clear actionable steps which AHPs can take to improve their own environmental sustainability.
Examples of the ways in which AHPs are already doing things which improve environmental sustainability to include ‘what good looks like’ for individual AHPs and their teams as well as wider examples demonstrating how AHPs can lead this work in their organisations.
Suggestions of how AHPs can contribute in relation to environmentally sustainable practice, digital, food and diet, use of equipment and public health and prevention.

Food & Nutrition is one of the focus areas for the Greener AHP Hub. As a food and nutrition professional, this NHS resource outlines key areas where you can make a difference in reducing the carbon footprint of healthcare food systems. It highlights your role in reducing food waste through optimizing mealtime support, promoting best practices, and utilizing technology for ordering and monitoring.

By advocating for healthy, low-carbon diets and minimizing packaging waste, you can address the broader impacts of food systems. This resource will help you implement strategies such as conducting waste audits, supporting patients in adopting better eating habits, and promoting the importance of nutrition and hydration among food service staff. Ultimately, this page equips you to link food, health, and climate change initiatives within the NHS, driving sustainable practices and better patient outcomes.

An example is the “Sustainability in Healthcare: Mildmay’s Low-Carbon Menu Transforms Patient Care“. Mildmay Hospital’s dietetics and catering teams, in collaboration with the NHS and dietetics students, developed a low-carbon menu tailored to vulnerable patients using recipes from the NHS England recipe bank. After iterative development and feedback, the winter menu achieved an 18% carbon footprint reduction and minimized food waste to 10% of portions served, while patient input led to further improvements like diverse recipes and a weekly cooked breakfast option for summer.

Choice architecture promotes sustainable choices in online food-delivery apps (2024 Oct)

Lohmann PM, Gsottbauer E, Farrington J, Human S, Reisch LA. Choice architecture promotes sustainable choices in online food-delivery apps. PNAS Nexus. 2024 Sep 19;3(10):pgae422. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae422. PMID: 39372540; PMCID: PMC11450623. (open access)

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions from the food system constitute about one-third of the global total, hence mitigation in this sphere of human activity is a vital goal for research and policy.

This study empirically tests the effectiveness of different interventions to reduce the carbon footprint of food choices made on food-delivery apps, using an incentive-compatible online randomized controlled trial with 4,008 participants. The experiment utilized an interactive web platform that mimics popular online food-delivery platforms (such as Just Eat) and included three treatment conditions: a sign-posted meat tax, a carbon-footprint label, and a choice-architecture intervention that changed the order of the menu so that the lowest carbon-impact restaurants and dishes were presented first.

Results show that only the choice-architecture nudge significantly reduced the average meal carbon footprint—by 0.3 kg/CO₂e per order (12%), driven by a 5.6 percentage point (13%) reduction in high-carbon meal choices. Moreover, we find evidence of significant health and well-being co-benefits. Menu repositioning resulted in the average meal order having greater nutritional value and fewer calories, whilst significantly increasing self-reported satisfaction with the meal choice.

Simple back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that menu repositioning would be a highly cost-effective policy instrument if implemented at scale, with the return on investment expected to be in the range of £1.28 to £3.85 per metric ton of avoided CO₂ emissions, depending on implementation costs.

The Nyéléni Global Forum (2025)

The world is in unprecedented turmoil, and we are all facing deep-rooted overlapping crises. We need a paradigm shift to reclaim the right to shape our own food systems for the well-being of people and the planet.

Launched in 1996 at the World Food Summit, food sovereignty promotes a people-focused approach to food systems, prioritizing locally produced, stable, healthy, and affordable food over dependence on global markets and neoliberal policies.

The International Nyéléni Forum in Mali (2007) established this vision as a global standard, uniting movements and organizations dedicated to food sovereignty and social justice. In 2015, the Nyéléni International Forum on Agroecology reinforced this, placing peasant, indigenous, family agroecology at the centre of a strategy for addressing climate and biodiversity crises.

That is why the Nyéléni Global Forum are calling for a new mobilization within and beyond the food sovereignty movement, to build our response at both global and local levels, and tighten alliances with climate justice, antiracism, health, labour, feminist, and social and solidarity economy movements and organisations. Through a multi-year process, they’ve brought together thousands of grassroots organizations and other allies across six world regions, to discuss and put forward joint proposals for a system change and a strong political agenda for the years to come.

The Nyéléni Global Forum, to be held in 2025 in India, will be the space for strategy and organization, and to kick off this new phase of the food sovereignty movement.

These can be ideal spaces for D-Ns to get involved with either during or between events in Food Councils or other collaborations. Click through to find the organizations near you who are involved.

Upcycled Food Association (UFA)(Website)

Upcycled Food Association (UFA) is a nonprofit trade association focused on reducing food waste by growing the upcycled food economy. The mission of the UFA is to champion upcycling as one of the most critical solutions to mitigate the climate crisis and advocate for the best interests of the upcycled food industry.

They envision a global food system where all food is elevated to its highest and best use. UFA is leveraging market forces to prevent food waste by coordinating hundreds of companies around the world and empowering millions of consumers to prevent climate change with the products they buy.

UFA has four main objectives:
1 Attracting more support for the upcycled industry
2 Connecting the upcycled business network
3 Improving the upcycled supply chain
4 Increasing consumer demand for upcycled products

UFA has 3 impact areas:

Research Fellowships – Upcycled Food Foundation research fellowships are dedicated to supporting evidence-based industry progress and educating consumers about the environmental and social benefits of upcycled foods.

Policy & Advocacy – We work to elevate and amplify the upcycled food industry by urging policymakers to support progressive policy and programs. Learn about our policy priorities, where we are advocating, and how we mobilize and represent UFA members.

Food Waste Funder Circle – Helping to fund the fight against food waste, the Food Waste Funder Circle is a network designed for private, public, and philanthropic funders interested in using their capital to solve food waste challenges.

A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives (2024)

Springmann M. (2024) A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Dec 10;121(50):e2319010121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2319010121.

Abstract

Reducing meat and dairy intake has been identified as a necessary strategy for mitigating the high environmental impacts food systems are currently having on climate change, biodiversity loss associated with land-use changes, and freshwater use. Having a choice of dedicated meat and milk replacements available to consumers can help in the transition toward more plant-based diets, but concerns about nutritional and health impacts and high costs can impede uptake.

Here, we conduct a multicriteria assessment of 24 meat and milk alternatives that integrates nutritional, health, environmental, and cost analyses with a focus on high-income countries. Unprocessed plant-based foods such as peas, soybeans, and beans performed best in our assessment across all domains. In comparison, processed plant-based products such as veggie burgers, traditional meat replacements such as tempeh, and plant milks were associated with less climate benefits and greater costs than unprocessed foods but still offered substantial environmental, health, and nutritional benefits compared to animal products.

Our findings suggest that a range of food products exist that when replacing meat and dairy in current diets would have multiple benefits, including reductions in nutritional imbalances, dietary risks and mortality, environmental resource use, and pollution, and when choosing unprocessed foods over processed ones, also diet costs. The findings provide support for public policies and business initiatives aimed at increasing their uptake.

Physicians Association for Nutrition (PAN)(website)

The Physicians Association for Nutrition (PAN) is an international NGO on a mission to eliminate diet-related deaths globally. By making nutrition a core part of healthcare and by engaging health professionals in efforts towards healthy and sustainable food environments they are advancing the food transformation needed to mitigate the three largest global health crises: chronic disease, climate change, and pandemic risk.

One in 5 premature deaths globally is due to poor nutrition. The current food system is also fuelling the climate crisis and pandemic risk. At the same time, physicians tend not to use the immense power of nutrition to prevent and treat disease in the first place. Their mission is to address this issue at the source and educate medical students and physicians about how nutrition can be used as an effective tool to treat their patients. Through empowering healthcare professionals with the tools, techniques and know-how to treat their patients differently, PAN enables them to save more lives. The PAN Academy has an online learning platform that makes nutrition education accessible to everyone.

PAN also approaches the bigger global problems of the broken food system by engaging an international community and support network of physicians, dietitians, medical students, and other healthcare workers. Through combined efforts, they can influence policy-makers and change food environments for the good of human and planetary health.

PAN’s influence is expanding and they regularly establish new national branches around the world. By partnering with like-minded international colleagues they can work effectively at a local, national and international scale to maximise impact. They have established branches in various countries in Europe and beyond, and they continue to grow their reach globally. Their national branches are all registered non-profit organisations in their respective countries.

In 2018 PAN signed a joint open letter on the need for a strong proposal on an EU legislative framework for sustainable food systems.

By empowering healthcare professionals with the tools‭, ‬techniques‭, ‬and knowledge to treat their patients differently‭, ‬PAN empowers‭ ‬them to enhance patient care and save lives around the world‭, ‬while also protecting our planet and global resources‭.‬

2025 January

School Meals Coalition. (2021 website)

The School Meals Coalition is a prominent and innovative vehicle for multilateral action and addresses multiple Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) outcomes. The School Meals Coalition is a government-led and partner-supported effort that aims at ensuring that by 2030 every child worldwide can receive a healthy meal in school. Led by Brazil, Finland, and France, the Coalition was one of the most impactful and successful initiatives coming out of the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021.

The Coalition is an example of a new generation of multilateralism; It’s about governments and partners agreeing to join forces and work together to improve the quality, sustainability, and scale of national school meals programmes and complementary interventions. It is about breaking silos and pooling resources – best practices, experience, information, and technical support. Through its multisectoral and holistic approach, the Coalition addresses implementation bottlenecks, strengthens evidence for decision-making, provides opportunities for improved coordination and generates the political will and buy-in needed for change through advocacy.

Besides food provision (SDG 2), school meal programs boost agriculture, create jobs, increase school attendance and learning, and enhance health. They function as in-kind cash transfers, promoting social stability, gender equity, and comprehensive social protection efforts. Additionally, school meals programmes can integrate complementary interventions, including WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene), nutrition education, and other routine school health and nutrition services.

School meals represent a powerful, multisectoral tool, which can contribute to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty (SDG1), hunger (SDG2), health (SDG3), education (SDG4), gender equality (SDG5), economic growth (SDG8), reduced inequalities (SDG10), Responsible consumption and production (SDG12), climate action (SDG13) and strengthened partnerships (SDG17).

To achieve this member states have set three objectives:

Restore all national school meal programmes lost to the pandemic by 2023
Reach the 73 million most vulnerable children who were not reached even prior to the pandemic by 2030
Improve the quality and efficiency of school health and nutrition programmes globally by 2030

2025 January