All hat and no cattle: Accountability following the UN food systems summit

Why understanding food choice is crucial to transform food systems for human and planetary health

What, how and why people eat has long been understood to be important for human health, but until recently, has not been recognised as an essential facet of climate change and its effects on planetary health. The global climate change and diet-related health crises occurring are connected to food systems, food environments and consumer food choices. Calls to transform food systems for human and planetary health highlight the importance of understanding individual food choice. Understanding what, how and why people eat the way they do is crucial to successful food systems transformations that achieve both human and planetary health goals. Little is known about how food choice relates to climate. To clarify potential paths for action, we propose that individual food choice relates to climate change through three key mechanisms. First, the sum of individual food choices influences the supply and demand of foods produced and sold in the marketplace. Second, individual food decisions affect type and quantity of food waste at the retail and household level. Third, individual food choices serve as a symbolic expression of concern for human and planetary health, which can individually and collectively stimulate social movements and behaviour change. To meet the dietary needs of the 2050 global population projection of 10 billion, food systems must transform. Understanding what, how and why people eat the way they do, as well as the mechanisms by which these choices affect climate change, is essential for designing actions conducive to the protection of both human and planetary health.

Bibliometric Analysis of Current Status of Circular Economy during 2012–2021: Case of Foods

Food is usually recognized as a limited resource in sustainability, recognized by the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, which aims to achieve zero hunger. It is expected that the circular economy (CE) can improve processes related to food production. The objective of the present study was to apply a bibliometric approach using VOSviewer visualization software as a research tool to analyze the relevant literature from the Scopus database in the field of circular economy and its relation to improvements in food issues throughout 2012–2021. A total of 1316 articles were analyzed. Italy was the most productive country with 313 articles, with Wageningen University & Research the organization with the most publications with 39 articles. The top 10 institutions originated from Italy, The Netherlands, France, and Denmark. Sustainability was the most productive journal with 107 articles. Bioresource Technology had the highest average citation frequency (44.68). The study helps initiate investigations to adapt the results obtained and create new strategies for increasing food circular economy efforts.

Reconfiguring Food Systems Governance: The UNFSS and the Battle Over Authority and Legitimacy

The UN Food Systems Summit was an ambitious and hotly contested event that brought competing approaches to global food governance into relief. In this article, we unpack the rival visions that circulate around how food systems should be governed, focusing on two issues that we feel are at the heart of these divergences: authority and legitimacy. We illustrate how both corporate-philanthropic and food sovereignty networks are struggling to establish epistemic authority of food systems as well as produce legitimacy through very different approaches to participation and accountability.