Between July and October the European Commission (EC) conducted its long-awaited public consultation on how Europe can move towards a more resource-efficient and sustainable food system. LiveWell for LIFE was delighted to see that sustainable food consumption played a central role in this consultation.
In November last year, the EC organised a public hearing on Europe’s role in feeding the world sustainably. This hearing illustrated the colossal sustainability challenge facing European food production and consumption, it presented a large variety of solutions already implemented across Europe and demonstrated the need to approach European food sustainability in an integrated way.
The EC seems to have acknowledged the findings of the public hearing and explored solutions to these in the consultation.
The consultation presented five priority challenges:
- Better technical knowledge on the environmental impacts of food;
- Stimulating sustainable food production;
- Promoting sustainable food consumption;
- Reducing food waste and losses; and
- Improving food policy coherence.
LiveWell was particularly delighted to see that the consultation addressed sustainable food consumption and food policy coherence.
As part of the former, the EC asked whether agreeing a common set of guiding principles of what constitutes ‘sustainable’ diet would be an effective action to promote sustainable food consumption. We applaud this approach; developing such universal principles was one of the key recommendations from the first LiveWell stakeholder workshop in 2012.
Other measures explored by the EC in promoting sustainable food consumption are information campaigns, increasing the availability of sustainable food in retail outlets, and developing and encouraging the use of Green Public Procurement guidelines. We welcome these measures, a number of which were identified in LiveWell’s latest report Adopting healthy, sustainable diets: key opportunities and barriers.
Although stimulating sustainable food consumption continues to be a challenging process, we believe the possibly biggest challenge will be to improve food policy coherence, not least at EU level. Responsibility for European food policy cuts across nearly all of the EC departments. How to design and implement a more integrated and effective structure for tackling future food challenges must therefore be addressed.
The EC will publish the results of the consultation and a Communication on the Sustainability of the Food System at the end of 2013/ early 2014.
Whilst we eagerly anticipate these findings, LiveWell for LIFE will continue doing its part in paving the way for sustainable consumption. We are working with the Network of European Food Stakeholders to identify EU public policy options and pathways for practical implementation of sustainable diets. The policy options and pathways will be subject to cost-benefit analysis and will be the core of LiveWell for LIFE’s final recommendations in 2014.
Join the Network of European Food Stakeholders for the opportunity to be involved in this work.
