OPERATIONALIZING SUSTAINABLE NUTRITION

Transcription

1 OPERATIONALIZING SUSTAINABLE NUTRITION TECHNICAL BRIEF Key points from an expert consultation organized by the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science KEY THEMES: Drivers of change in the production and consumption of food Consumers perceptions of health and sustainability Designing strategies and recommendations to promote sustainable nutrition

2 WHY A TECHNICAL BRIEF ON NUTRITION SUSTAINABILITY? Resolving the challenges of producing high quality nutritious food in sufficient quantity, at an affordable price and without damaging the environment, is of direct interest to a very broad range of actors such as famers, manufacturers, food safety experts, distributors, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and nutrition scientists. Engaging these stakeholders in discussions about sustainable nutrition in the food systems is critical, yet not all can be expected to be familiar with the intricacies of measuring environmental impact or nudging consumers to change, let alone be experts in the complex modeling techniques that such exercises require. This Technical Brief in intended for stakeholders in the food systems who want to learn more about enhancing both nutritional quality and sustainability along the value chain. It aims to inform those in the food and environmental sector that are not fully familiar with the concepts of sustainability and food. Taking a broad perspective, it offers some strategic directions to better measure, comprehend and address the challenges of sustainable nutrition, and aims to: BACKGROUND As the population grows toward an estimated 9.8 billion by 2050, food sustainability has been identified as a global priority. International accords, including the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, 1 specifically call for alleviating the impacts of agriculture and food production on climate change. More broadly, providing nutritious and affordable food while preserving land, water and air quality, as well communities livelihood and animal welfare form part of a sustainable nutrition agenda. 2,3 Yet, sustainability is not a priority in most food purchase decisions. 4 Industry efforts to drive sustainability may succeed or fail in the marketplace, and consumer attitudes and behavior are perhaps the most difficult area to capture and modify. The barriers and benefits to a sustainable overhaul of the food system are significant for consumers, producers and regulators. Alterations or disruptions in food demand, production, and processing trigger systemic changes throughout the entire supply chain. 5 Advances in modeling and scenario simulation are key tools for providing the food industry with a more holistic view of how various changes may lead to sustainable nutrition. Provide clues to understand the complexity of the issue and the importance of potential trade-offs between nutrition and sustainability in the food system Identify approaches and technical tools that already exist or are in development to assist in guiding decisions that support sustainable nutrition Highlight the need for collaborative effort to drive research and actions 2

3 THE WORKSHOP On January 19, 2017, the Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences and Unilever convened a workshop at the London International Development Centre to identify pathways for operationalizing sustainability and nutritional quality within the food system. Participants included experts in food systems, environmental science, nutrition and food science, waste management, marketing, and consumer behavior. They discussed factors that support sustainable and nutritionally healthful food production and the associated trade-offs and synergies; metrics for gauging the environmental impact of production practices; mechanisms for creating demand for sustainable, affordable and healthful food; and research needs to further inform sustainable nutrition strategies. Workshop Scientific Organizing Committee Gilles Bergeron, PhD, Executive Director, The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science Jessica Fanzo, PhD, Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Ethics and Global Food & Agriculture, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Bloomberg School of Public Health Annie Heremans, MD, PhD, Vice President responsible for Global Clinical studies, Global Nutrition and Health, Unilever Mireille Mclean, MA, MPH, Director, The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science Workshop presenters Tara Garnett, PhD, Food Climate Research Network, Oxford University Centre for the Environment Jennie I Macdiarmid, PhD, Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen Shabbir Gheewala, PhD, The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, Centre of Excellence on Energy Technology and Environment, King Mongkut s University of Technology, Thonburi (Thailand) Ulf Sonesson, PhD, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Food and Bioscience Silvia Miret-Catalan, PhD, Discover Director for Nutrition and Health, Unilever 3

4 DESCRIBING DRIVERS OF CHANGE AND CONSUMERS PERCEPTIONS OF HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY Consumers choices about food purchase and consumption are driven by cultural norms, habits, their own sense of identity, and pleasure, in addition to personal concerns about the environment and health priorities, creating a three-way tradeoff between nutrition, sustainability, and cultural norms. 4 Some of these norms are so entrenched that consumers will not reduce consumption of items with low price elasticity even when prices increase. The knowledge that a product may not be healthy nor good for the environment, is usually insufficient for consumers to shift away from it. Surmounting this knowledge-behavior gap requires sophisticated analysis of consumer motivations, conceptions about food, and priorities. 4 Modeling and simulation techniques are increasingly important tools for grappling with the social, economic, psychological, and cultural heterogeneities that influence food choices. Interdisciplinary techniques, such as agentbased modeling, can be used to re-create complex social and cultural systems and simulate the impact of various strategies to shift dietary habits towards healthier, more sustainable options. 6 Using data from existing studies to create virtual people and sets of norms, research teams simulate the dynamic relationships between individuals (agents) and social contexts when it comes to food choices. Factors such as location, the presence or absence of eating companions, how many of them and who they are, have significant impacts on what we eat, when we eat, and how much we consume. Understanding such contextual impacts is a crucial step in devising strategies to influence food choices. It bears noting that even the projections of the most sophisticated agent-based or similar models are limited. Assumptions that underpin scenarios may be inaccurate, and cannot account for the advent of disruptive technologies, global political, economic, or climate crises that influence food supply. As efforts to increase sustainability rely on consumer buy-in, research probing consumer perceptions about health and sustainability and how best to influence behavior change is an area of considerable interest. APPROACHES TO QUANTIFYING NUTRITION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD PRODUCTS Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely-used tool for assessing the environmental impact of a product, from raw material extraction to production, transport, use, and disposal. 7 LCA quantifies the environmental burden created at each point along the value chain. This creates the ability to identify the main pressure points and potential synergies between processes, suggest corrections, and model the outcomes. LCA can help debunk commonly-held conceptions about which aspects of the supply chain contribute the greatest environmental impact, thus allowing food producers and manufacturers to identify hot spots in sourcing and production (Figure 1). FIGURE 1 Inputs Allocation related to industry processing Waste at industry Waste at retail Avoidable, unavoidable and potentially avoidable waste at home Cooking weight change Food at farm gate Food at industry gate Food at retailer gate Food purchased Food uncooked Food cooked, ingested Inputs Inputs Inputs 4

5 LCA should be seen as a stepping stone towards building a strategy for sustainable nutrition, and users should invest in overcoming a number of challenges: Data requirements LCA requires large amounts of high quality data related to energy and material inputs and outputs of each process within the value chain. If used to compare scenarios where one ingredient or one process is substituted with another, primary data involving every components are needed. These data can be difficult and costly to compile. Methodological challenges LCA was originally designed to model impacts of activities occurring in the technical sphere. Activities such as agriculture, which take place at the confluence of the environmental and technical spheres, are more difficult to model given the influence of weather, pests, soil health etc. with highly variable impacts. These impact categories are more difficult to address in LCA than those that are more directly related to material and energy use, although good progress is being made in terms of methodological development in this area. 8,9 Model scope and assumptions LCA is a static model which facilitates analysis of individual segments of the economy (e.g. a single product). If changes are made to the studied product, it is difficult to capture knock-on consequences in the broader economy. Dynamic, integrated system modelling is required for this, and those well-constructed scenarios can provide insights to roadmap actions (Figure 2). However, these rely on a variety of assumptions about dietary requirements, consumer or producer willingness to change; consequences in the wider economy etc., which are difficult to verify. In addition, whilst comparative LCA can be used to address the question: which option is better?, it does not address the question: are any of the options good enough? Recently established efforts to integrate Planetary Boundaries in LCA may help to address this shortcoming. 11,12 Integration of indicators of nutritional quality Currently, metrics tend to reflect agricultural yields rather than the nutritional and other functions of food. Efforts are underway to develop alternative, nutrition-based functional units to allow for more relevant comparisons between products, complete meals, or whole diets, including caloric content, micronutrient requirements and nutrient indicators of a healthy diet such as nutrient density indices. 10 5

6 ROADMAP AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER ACTIONS A combination of hard models focused on industrial processes such as LCA and soft models based on analyses of actors are required to identify the best pathway toward building a roadmap of actions for sustainable nutrition including data collection, analysis, and modeling (Figure 2). FIGURE 2 - PATHWAY TO ROADMAP DEFINITION FOR SUSTAINABLE NUTRITION Food product analysis Footprint assessment Modelling Roadmap definition Cultivation (seeds, land use, fertilizers & pesticides, irrigation etc.) Processing (washing, food safety treatment, heating, additives, packaging) Distribution (type & mode of transport) Consumption (washing, cooking, waste disposal) Greenhouse Gas Emissions Air pollution Water pollution and acidification Biodiversity Ecotoxicity Social Impact Nutrient quantity and quality Model nutritional and enironmental footprint Compare techniques Compare systems Build Scenario Model consumers attitude Assess unanticipated consequences of change Baseline data analysis Is the nutritional quality and environmental footprint of the product satisfactory? What can be improved? Roadmap initiation Technical and systems change that address nutritional and environmental needs Roadmap monitoring Accounting for side-effects and unintended consequences 6

7 Data and models results on their own will not provide a concrete plan of action. Further work is required to extract generalizable insights from existing studies in a systematic way, plotting them in this roadmap format. This Technical Brief proposes several recommendations to support this development. Identify hotspots and set targets for sustainability and nutrition Industrial processes intended to drive sustainable nutrition can take multiple forms, from minor ingredient substitutions and reformulations to full divestment from products that do not support sustainability a massive shift that places sustainability at the center of a corporate identity. Measuring which process change will have the greatest effect on sustainable nutrition will help prioritize actions. Model capability Dynamic models to illuminate system-wide consequences of changes in the food system should be developed and tested. Acknowledging that predictive models are imperfect, this technical brief emphasizes the importance of using systems tools to simulate the effects, both intended and unintended, of setting targets and for sustainable nutrition. Highlight trade-offs and interpret results to support decisions Operationalizing sustainable nutrition implies finding which trade-offs are acceptable and desirable: For example, when might it be preferable to offer a product that has a significantly lower environmental cost, but also a slightly lower nutritional value, than an alternative? The notion that food products can be good enough from a nutrition perspective and an environmental perspective, rather than optimal from only one standpoint, needs to be further considered. Bear the cost The economic cost of operationalizing sustainability was identified as a major research gap. LCA and modeling can yield estimates of environmental impact, such as a percentage reduction in greenhouse gases or water footprint, but quantifying the cost of environmental savings beyond carbon is very imprecise. Define sustainable diets in all region of the world While optimal nutrition for all on the planet seems unrealistic, providing adequate, sustainable nutrition for all is through modifications in the supply chain is possible. These must include lower-income populations and the developing world. Addressing hunger, malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, food insecurity, and the risk of obesity in developing economies is a critical part of meeting global sustainable nutrition goals. Exploring Behavior Change Opportunities exist for promoting behavior change among consumers and producers to support a sustainable diet. Innovative approaches such as social marketing and nudges can be used, in a transparent way, to explore the potential of culture, habit and identity as facilitator of, rather than barriers to, dietary changes. CONCLUSION Balancing nutrition and sustainability in the food systems is extraordinarily complex. This technical brief indicates that tools and models already exist - incomplete, imperfect, and difficult to analyze, yet sufficient to initiate a roadmap towards improvements and support decision-making. All stakeholders would benefit from becoming familiar with these approaches, and join collaborations to share information and develop best practices that support sustainable nutrition. 7

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