Conference Object
Human nutrition is responsible for about 30% of the global natural resource use. In order to decrease resource use to a level in line with planetary boundaries, a resource use reduction in the nutrition sector by a factor 2 is suggested. A large untapped potential to increase resource efficiency and improve consumers' health status is assumed, but valid indicators and general guidelines to assess these impacts and limits can barely be found. Therefore we will have a try to define sustainable limits towards the individuals' daily diet and therefore stimulate current available scientific debate.
Within the paper an examination of existing indicators and assessment methods is carried out. We set the focus on health indicators, such as energy intake, and environmental indicators, such as the carbon or material footprint. The paper aims to provide first, an assessment of core indicators to explore the sustainability impact of foodstuff, and second, a deeper understanding and a discussion of sustainable limits for those dimensions of food and nutrition. Therefore we will discuss several ecological and health indicators which may be suitable to assess the sustainabilty impact and indicate differences or similarities. As a result it becomes obvious that several ecological indicators "point in the same direction" and therefore a discussion about the variability and the variety of these indicators has to be faced in the future. Further the definition of sustainable levels per indicator is an essential aspect to get an idea about the needed barriers for a sustainable nutrition, by now first steps had been made, but no binding guidelines are available yet. Therefore the paper suggests a few indications to set up sustainable levels for health and environmental indicators, based on the idea to reduce the resource use level up to 30-50% in 2030.
The field of nutrition is facing numerous social, ecological and economic challenges in the coming decades. The food industry belongs to the most significant economic sectors worldwide and the increasing population of 9 billion in 2050 will cause a growing demand on food. So far, changing lifestyles, especially the global rising consumption of meat and dairy products are increasing environmental damage. Moreover our health and wellbeing are the direct result of healthy or unhealthy nourishment and influence follow-up indicators like individual and public health, the expense of the health sector and work productivity.
The material footprint is a tool to measure and optimize the resource consumption of both products and their ingredients and the production processes along the whole value chain. It covers the whole life cycle of the products, from the extraction of raw materials to the processing industry, distribution, consumption, recycling, and disposal. In order to decrease resource consumption to a level in line with the planetary boundaries, the material footprint of household consumption should achieve a level of six to eight tonnes per capita in a year by 2050. This means a reduction in natural resource consumption by a factor of 5 to 10 in Western European countries. In order to ensure a decent lifestyle for all people in 2050, also the material footprint of nutrition has to be reduced significantly by 2050.
The paper shows the relevance and role of nutrition in the overall material footprint of households on the basis of existing studies on the overall resource consumption caused by household consumption. Quantified meal and diet examples are given. It also discusses the causes of food waste and raises the question how a reduction of food waste is possible and can help decreasing the resource consumption in the food sector.