Bridging Nutritional and Environmental Sustainability Within Planetary Boundaries in Food Life Cycle Assessments: SWOT Review and Development of the Planet Health Conformity Index

Toni Meier (), Susann Schade, Frank Forner and Ulrike Eberle
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Toni Meier: Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Economics (INL) e.V., 06114 Halle, Germany
Susann Schade: Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Economics (INL) e.V., 06114 Halle, Germany
Frank Forner: Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Economics (INL) e.V., 06114 Halle, Germany
Ulrike Eberle: Corsus—Corporate Sustainability GmbH, 20459 Hamburg, Germany

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: To promote sustainable food choices, it is essential to provide easily understandable information that integrates health, environmental impacts and planetary boundaries. For this purpose, the Planet Health Conformity Index (PHC) was developed and tested. Current labels, such as the Nutri-Score for health and the Eco-Score for environmental impacts, provide separate information, which may result in consumers receiving conflicting messages. The PHC combines these dimensions into a single label, aligning with consumer demand for clearer guidance and fostering sustainable food consumption and development. Methods: The PHC assesses 18 nutrients and five environmental impacts—Global Warming Potential (GWP), cropland use, freshwater use, nitrogen application (N-min) and phosphorus application (P-min)—within the framework of planetary boundaries. Six different algorithm designs, varying in capping and weighting, were tested on 125 food products from the German market. The analysis compared mass-, energy- and multi-nutrient-based functional units. Results: Under mass- and energy-based units, many products meet planetary boundaries. However, incorporating nutrient profiles often leads to exceeding these boundaries (exceedance rate PHC: GWP: 38% of products transgressed the boundary, cropland use: 41%, freshwater use: 27%, N-min: 34%, P-min: 71%). Accordingly, the PHC contextualizes nutritional strengths and weaknesses environmentally. Moreover, it disaggregates the Planetary Health Diet (PHD) at the nutrient level, facilitating adaptation to individual nutritional needs. Conclusions: Traditional food Life Cycle Assessments should include nutrients in the functional unit and consider planetary boundaries to enable more accurate food comparisons. The PHC presented here takes these aspects into account. In addition, its dual-factor approach, integrating health and environmental metrics, ensures broad applicability. Thus, the PHC Index can be applied not only to single food items but also to recipes, dishes, menus and entire diets.

Keywords: life cycle assessment (LCA); multi-nutritional LCA; nutritional functional unit; planetary boundaries; planetary health diet (PHD); Planet Health Conformity Index (PHC); food profiling; Nutri-Score; Eco-Score; SWOT analysis; review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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