The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems

Abstract

Section snippets

Executive summary

The global context has shifted dramatically since publication of the first EAT–Lancet Commission in 2019, with increased geopolitical instability, soaring food prices, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and creating new challenges. However, food systems remain squarely centred at the nexus of food security, human health, environmental sustainability, social justice, and the resilience of nations. Actions on food systems strongly impact the lives and wellbeing of all

Introduction: healthy, sustainable, and just food systems

The food system has an outsized impact on human wellbeing and planetary health. What we eat, and where and how this food is produced, processed, and distributed, strongly influences the length and quality of people's lives, and our capacity to stay within planetary boundaries. How food systems are governed and managed determine the extent to which people can participate in and benefit from food systems. Since the 2019 publication of Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy

Section 1: what is a healthy diet?

Here, we review the evidence on diet and health and present reference values for food group intakes in the reference PHD (table 1). Following the findings of the 2019 Commission, we have included additional health outcomes such as dementia and atrial fibrillation, considered the effects of food processing, and examined the implications of the PHD for young children and women of reproductive age. The relation between the PHD with mortality and other health outcomes has now been examined in

Section 2: sustainable food systems within planetary boundaries

Planetary boundaries is an Earth system's framework²⁰⁰ that quantifies limits for biophysical processes that regulate the stability and resilience of life-support systems on Earth. Transgression of these boundaries pushes the Earth system into an unsafe environmental space for humanity. The latest update of the planetary boundary framework¹⁴ concludes that six of nine planetary boundaries have already been transgressed. The 2019 EAT–Lancet Commission assessed five of these boundaries—land,

What is a just food system?

Justice involves the fair treatment of people, both as individuals and groups. Although various articulations of justice exist across disciplines and sectors (eg, philosophy, economics, sociology, and law), here we draw on three inter-related dimensions of justice that feature prominently in the literature on social and environmental justice: distributive, representational (or procedural), and recognitional (figure 8).315, 316 Distributive justice involves the fair distribution of important

Section 4: assessing potential environmental and socioeconomic consequences of a food systems transformation

To explore how food systems could become more aligned with health, environmental, and justice objectives, the potential consequences of their restructuring by dietary change, increased productivity, and reduced food loss and waste (FLW) should be assessed. We use two complementary modelling approaches for this purpose.First, we assembled a multimodel ensemble of ten global economic models used in high-level assessments of climate change, land use, and food security,410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415

Section 5: solutions and actions to improve health, environmental sustainability, and justice

A great food transformation¹ is required if the world is to align with the EAT–Lancet's vision by 2050. This transformation must operate across multiple leverage points, including profound shifts in the underlying objectives of food systems outcomes.448, 449 The focus should move beyond simply maximising profit and volume in agriculture, to achieving food security in ways that prioritise diet quality and advance health, sustainability, and social justice. Equally essential are interventions

Section 6: a just food systems transformation is possible

The magnitude of changes needed to shift from an unsustainable status quo to the outcomes advocated for in this Commission are admittedly enormous. The differences between the present state, the projected trajectory under BAU scenarios for environmental and dietary patterns from the DIA-GIO model, and the projected trajectory needed for the desired future state (aligned with global adoption of the PHD, food system boundaries, and social foundations) are illustrated in figure 17. For all the

Conclusions: accelerating meaningful action

This Commission calls for an urgent, comprehensive approach to food systems transformation, centred on the development of context-specific roadmaps that provide viable, evidence-based solution sets. Such roadmaps should focus on bundling actions, setting science-based targets, building inclusive coalitions, establishing and building on already existing monitoring and accountability mechanisms, and mobilising financial resources at scale. At the core of our Commission's framework are three

Declaration of interests

ACB received funding from Familjen Kamprad Foundation (20200149) and the IKEA Foundation (G-1910-01412); AM, CCh, DM-D'C, FDeC, NEC, and SKJ received funding from the CGIAR Science Program on Policy Innovations, the CGIAR initiative on Nexus Gains, and the CGIAR Foresight Initiative; BC was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Banting Fellowship, Columbia Climate School; CCo received funding from the IKEA Foundation (31002610); CCH received funding from the European Research

Acknowledgments

The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of their home institutions. The Commission's work has been made possible thanks to support from the IKEA Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, Wellcome Trust, the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. None of these organisations had any role in the work of