Beyond the IPCC for Food: An Overarching Framework for Food Systems Sustainability Assessment

Dario Caro, Fabio Sporchia, Marta Antonelli and Alessandro Galli ()
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Dario Caro: Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Fabio Sporchia: Ecodynamics Group, Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment, University of Siena, Piazzetta Enzo Tiezzi 1, 53100 Siena, Italy
Marta Antonelli: Impacts on Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services (IAFES), Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), via Igino Garbini 51, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
Alessandro Galli: Global Footprint Network, Route de Jeunes, 9, 1227 Geneva, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 19, 1-10

Abstract: Food systems are responsible for a large share of anthropogenic impacts. In recent debates, the need to strengthen the link between science and policy has emerged with the proposal to establish a new global science–policy interface for a sustainable food system. While the clash between those who consider necessary and those who do not consider necessary the creation of this panel increases, this paper takes inspiration from this debate to highlight how strengthening the interactions between science and policy should be supported by increasing the informativeness of current sustainability assessments, regardless of the need for such a panel. In particular, we delve into this emerging topic by focusing on some critical aspects of the current sustainability assessments of food systems, which include the need for more comprehensive assessments, based on the joint use of multiple indicators. While sustainability assessments of food systems have been historically focusing on just one–two externalities at a time, the introduction of new multi-faceted indicators make it now possible to look at multiple externalities concurrently and at the trade-offs among them. Dietary contextualization becomes essential too, to avoid the provision of misleading information. An operative framework to improve sustainability assessments of food systems is presented here and discussed with the aim of promoting more informative approaches, which are crucial for transforming scientific knowledge into mitigation policies.

Keywords: sustainable food systems; science–policy interface; sustainable diets; intergovernmental governance; indicator informativeness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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