Providing foresight on the future development of sustainable food and nutrition security (SFNS) in the EU is one of SUSFANS' core targets. This concept encompasses sustainable food systems and sustainable and balanced diets. In their new deliverable, SUSFANS researchers presented a first step in the quantitative part of the foresight. Its main objective is to quantify the contextual variables to be used as input by models in the SUSFANS Toolbox.
WP 1: Conceptual framework and FNS sustainability metrics
General Information
Work package 1 seeks to enhance the conceptualization of FNS and to develop metrics for food system sustainability that capture the range of world views across food system actors.
It will define metrics and identify socioeconomic and environmental drivers and their interaction. Changes in these drivers will influence the food system that will lead to socioeconomic and environmental feedbacks.
How the conceptual framework is working
Latest Publication
A modelling strategy for quantifying the sustainability of food and nutrition security in the EU
This deliverable outlines a modelling strategy for quantifying metrics and methods for quantifying the sustainability of EU FNS. SUSFANS models are assessed in terms of data needs, their limitations and the questions they can address related to sustainable FNS in the short term and the long term. This assessment sets the scene for operationalization of the SUSFANS Toolbox.
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Deliverable 1.3: Sustainability metrics for the EU food system: a review across economic, environmental and social considerations
One of the main objectives of the SUSFANS project is to develop a set of concepts and tools to help policy and decision makers across Europe make sense of the outcomes and trends of the EU food system. This paper proposes a set of metrics for assessing the performance of the EU food system in delivering sustainable food and nutrition security. The performance metrics have been built up through the aggregation of a wide range of variables, which together help to monitor the achievement of four overarching policy goals for the EU food system, namely a balanced diet for EU citizens, reduced environmental impacts, competitive agri-food businesses and equitable outcomes of the food system. The project decided to take a hierarchical approach to aggregating from Individual Variables to Derived Variables to Aggregate Indicators to Performance Metrics. This approach aims at marrying the notion that decision makers want only a small but powerful set of metrics to communicate the findings of the assessment, with the need to substantiate these metrics with the best available data from a large number of sources in a transparent way. In this deliverable the current set up of the performance metrics focus on each individual policy goal. In a related report, the team explores if and how the performance metrics presented here can be quantified using available data and modelling tools, and which of the models of the SUSFANS tool box can estimate which ones of the performance metrics and how (report D1.4). In a final step the SUSFANS team will bring all performance metrics together in an integrated set that will allow a view across all four policy goals and thus across all aspects of sustainable food and nutrition security (forthcoming report D1.5). Further work is the quantification of metrics using case studies and prospective scenario analysis. In addition to their use for monitoring, the proposed metrics are geared towards quantification using selected computational modelling tools. As such, SUSFANS aims to assist in foresight on and the evaluation of transformative changes in the food system with rigour and consistency.
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Newsletter 2
The second newsletter answers research questions like: "What do European consumers think about sustainable food?", "Can information beef up the demand for meat alternatives?" or "Can we bank on seafood for a healthier food consumption?" It gives short summaries of the deliverables and papers, published during the last month
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Operationalising the health aspects of sustainable diets: a review
Shifting towards a more sustainable food consumption pattern is an important strategy to mitigate climate change. In the past decade, various studies have optimised environmentally sustainable diets using different methodological approaches. The aim of the present review was to categorise and summarise the different approaches to operationalise the health aspects of environmentally sustainable diets.
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Quantifying the sustainability of food and nutrition security in the EU: a new modelling strategy
The SUSFANS project aims to contribute to food systems change. To achieve this, the research will provide policy and decision makers across Europe with the tools to get a holistic understanding of the EU food system and how it relates to sustainable food and nutrition security.
Unveiling foodsystems: building a holistic set of metrics to assess food security in the EU food system based on stakeholder consultation
One of the main objectives of the SUSFANS project is to develop a set of concepts and tools to help policy and decision makers across Europe make sense of the outcomes and trends of the EU food system.
Review Article: Operationalising the health aspects of sustainable diets: a review
Shifting towards a more sustainable food consumption pattern is an important strategy to mitigate climate change. In the past decade, various studies have optimised environmentally sustainable diets using different methodological approaches. The aim of the present review was to categorise and summarise the different approaches to operationalise the health aspects of environmentally sustainable diets.
Work package leader
© Copyright 2015. METRICS, MODELS AND FORESIGHT FOR EUROPEAN SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY - SUSFANS
H2020-SFS-2014-2,
Grant 633692