Multi-indicator Sustainability Assessment
Food systems are at the heart of at least 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The wide scope of the SDGs call for holistic approaches that integrate previously “siloed” food sustainability assessments. Here we present a first global-scale analysis quantifying the status of national food system performance of 156 countries, employing 25 sustainability indicators across 7 domains as follows: nutrition, environment, food affordability and availability, sociocultural well-being, resilience, food safety, and waste. The results show that different countries have widely varying patterns of performance with unique priorities for improvement. High-income nations score well on most indicators, but poorly on environmental, food waste, and health-sensitive nutrient-intake indicators. Transitioning from animal foods toward plant-based foods would improve indicator scores for most countries. Our nation-specific quantitative results can help policy-makers to set improvement targets on specific areas and adopt new practices, while keeping track of the other aspects of sustainability.
Details regarding the SDSN Switzerland/SNSF NRP 73 Online Workshop Session 2020 can be found here:
Selected publication
Chaudhary, A., Gustafson, D. & Mathys, A. 2018. Multi-Indicator sustainability assessment of global food systems, Nature Communications. 9:848. external pageDOI
Herrero, M., Thornton, P. K., Mason-D’Croz, D., Palmer, J., Bodirsky, B. L., Pradhan, P., Barrett, C. B., Benton, T. G., Hall, A., Pikaar, I., Bogard, J. R., Bonnett, G. D., Bryan, B. A., Campbell, B. M., Christensen, S., Clark, M., Fanzo, J., Godde, C. M., Jarvis, A., Loboguerrero, A. M., Mathys, A., McIntyre, C. L., Naylor, R. L., Nelson, R., Obersteiner, M., Parodi, A., Popp, A., Ricketts, K., Smith, P., Valin, H., Vermeulen, S. J., Vervoort, J., van Wijk, M., van Zanten, H. H. E., West, P. C., Wood, S. A. & Rockström, J. 2021. Articulating the effect of food systems innovation on the Sustainable Development Goals. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(1): E50 - E62. external pageDOI
Barrett, C. B., Benton, T. G., Cooper, K. A., Fanzo, J., Gandhi, R., Herrero, M., James, S., Kahn, M., Mason-D’Croz, D., Mathys, A., Nelson, R. J., Shen, J., Thornton, P., Bageant, E., Fan, S., Mude, A. G., Sibanda, L. M. & Wood, S. 2020. Bundling innovations to transform agri-food systems. Nature Sustainability. (The article was highlighted in the Editorial of Nature Sustainability, 3: 973) 3: 974 - 976. external pageDOI
Barrett, C. B., Benton, T., Fanzo, J., Herrero, M., Nelson, R., Buckler, E. S., Cooper, K. A., Culotta, I., Fan, S., Gandhi, R., James, S., Kahn, M., Lawson-Lartego, L., Liu, J., Marshall, Q., Mason-D’Croz, D., Mathys, A., Mathys, C., Mazariegos-Anastassiou, V., Miller, A., Misra, K., Mude, A. G., Shen, J., Majele-Sibanda, L., Song, C., Steiner, R., Thornton, P. & Wood, S. 2020. Socio-technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-food Systems Transformation. A Nature Sustainability Expert Panel Report. Report of the International Expert Panel on Innovations to Build Sustainable, Equitable, Inclusive Food Value Chains. Nature Sustainability. Invited report, reviewed by Nature Sustainability editorial board, external pagehttps://www.nature.com/documents/Bundles_agrifood_transformation.pdf
Barrett, C. B., Jessica Fanzo, Mario Herrero, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, Alexander Mathys, Philip K. Thornton, Stephen Wood, Tim G. Benton, Shenggen Fan, Laté Lawson-Lartego, Rebecca Nelson, Jianbo Shen and Lindiwe Majele Sibanda. 2021. COVID-19 pandemic lessons for agri-food systems innovation. Environmental Research Letters, vol. 16: no. 10, pp. 101001, external pageDOI
Green, A., Nemecek, T., & Mathys, A. 2023. A proposed framework to develop nutrient profiling algorithms for assessments of sustainable food: the metrics and their assumptions matter. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, vol. 28: no. 10, pp. 1326-1347. external pageDOI
Green, A., Blattmann, C., Chen, C. & Mathys, A. 2022. The role of alternative proteins and future foods in sustainable and contextually-adapted flexitarian diets. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 124, 250-258. external pageDOI
Green, A., Nemecek, T., Smetana S. & Mathys, A. 2021. Reconciling regionally-explicit nutritional needs with environmental protection by means of nutritional life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 127696. external pageDOI
Green, A., Nemecek, T., Chaudhary, A. & Mathys, A. 2020. Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production. Global Food Security, 26, 100406. external pageDOI
Chen, C., Chaudhary, A. & Mathys, A. 2020. Nutritional and environmental losses embedded in global food waste.
Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 160, 104912. external pageDOI.
Chen, C., Chaudhary, A. & Mathys, A. 2019. Dietary Change Scenarios and Implications for Environmental, Nutrition, Human Health and Economic Dimensions of Food Sustainability. Nutrients 2019, 11, 856. external pageDOI
Chaudhary, A., Marinangeli, C.P.F., Tremorin, D. & Mathys, A. 2018. Nutritional Combined Greenhouse Gas Life Cycle Analysis for Incorporating Canadian Yellow Pea into Cereal-Based Food Products, Nutrients, 10: 4, 490. external pageDOI