Nutritional and environmental sustainability metrics for food systems

Summary

Published in Nature Food in 2020, this paper by Hallström and colleagues proposes and evaluates metrics that simultaneously capture the nutritional value and environmental footprint of food systems. The work addresses the methodological challenge of integrating human health and planetary sustainability dimensions into a coherent analytical framework. It is likely to have examined how different food groups and dietary patterns perform across both nutritional and environmental dimensions, offering tools for more holistic food system assessment.

UK applicability

Although the study is international in scope, its methodological framework for dual nutritional-environmental assessment is directly applicable to UK food policy contexts, including the development of sustainable dietary guidelines and the work of bodies such as the Food Standards Agency and the National Food Strategy.

Key measures

Nutritional quality indices; greenhouse gas emissions; land use; water use; composite sustainability scores per food group or dietary pattern

Outcomes reported

The study developed and applied composite metrics combining nutritional quality and environmental impact indicators to assess the sustainability of food systems and dietary patterns. It likely reported trade-offs and synergies between nutritional adequacy and environmental performance across different food groups or dietary scenarios.

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