A new briefing paper by Ben Reynolds of Sustain and Christine Haigh of Women’s Environmental Network (WEN), explains how social housing providers and their tenants can work together on their estates to grow food.

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This is a report of a visit to urban food growing projects in the United States by a group of four people from different organisations based in London. It was organised by Sustain's London Food Link officer, Ben Reynolds, and funded by the US Embassy, who had previously brought Will Allen to London to talk about his project, Growing Power, in the USA.

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This publication is a companion to Have you bottled it? How drinking tap water can help save you and the planet, that Sustain published in January 2007. It notes progress since then, here and globally, in encouraging the public and private sectors to use tap water instead of bottled water. It also looks at how the bottled water industry is responding to growing criticism of bottled water for being unnecessary, damaging to the environment, and expensive.

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The purpose of the report is to help current and future orchard projects, supporting practitioners and local communities to enhance, protect and celebrate orchards. It gives practical advice on setting up and running orchard projects; looks at creative ways to engage local communities and the media; and explores how to make orchards more financially viable through fundraising and selling orchard products. It draws upon many successful examples of Leader+ and similar projects and the advice and experience from orchard groups around the UK and elsewhere. This guide aims to inspire orchard enthusiasts everywhere, to take practical action to conserve our orchard heritage for the enjoyment of generations to come.

"The finished (report) is absolutely fantastic, a great balance of enough information to make it really useful but not so much as to make it cumbersome or hard to navigate. We've had really good feedback from people who have seen it so far"
Dawn Turner Programme Manager at Herefordshire Leader+

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A British Heart Foundation and Children's Food Campaign proposal for a statutory system to regulate non-broadcast junk food advertising and marketing to children

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Why the terms “local”, “seasonal” and “farmers’ market” should be defended from abuse by the food industry’

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This report is a call to action for everyone involved in catering for the London 2012 Olympic Games, to ensure that the food served before, during and after the Games is local, seasonal and organic as was promised in London’s bid.

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This new London Food Link report provides a snapshot of current practices and attitudes around sustainability in the restaurant, hotel and catering sectors in London, and initial work to support improvements. It features many examples of good practice showing how restaurants around the capital have incorporated sustainability including Leon, Acorn House and Konstam. The report also explores ways to stimulate a more sustainable food system, and the people and organisations best placed to make this come about. The report shows that many of London’s restaurants are missing out on a booming market for local and ethical food and those who are already using sustainable ingredients could do more to communicate this effectively to their customers.

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Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) businesses are vital for the cultural and economic vibrancy food in London, and Britain. Yet this ground-breaking report shows that, like the rest of the food sector, many businesses have not yet grasped the market opportunities presented by our growing appetite for sustainable food. The report recommends that Government provides both money and a higher profile for measures to stimulate the supply of sustainable food from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) as well as the demand for sustainable food, including from schools, hospitals and other public sector caterers. As well as calling for Government action, Recipe for a Greener Curry gives well-deserved publicity to the current “green” entrepreneurs in the BAME food sector, and also aims to inspire others to build on their achievements, finding new and exciting ways of bringing culturally distinctive, delicious and sustainable food to our plates.

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Despite bottled water costing around 500 times as much as tap water, analysts predict we will buy more than 2 billion litres this year. Are you going to "bottle out" of your responsibility to the planet, and carry on drinking increasing quantities of bottled water?

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Starting with a brief definition of sustainable food, the report sets out why care homes should increase the proportion of sustainable food they serve, outlines the main obstacles to and opportunities for doing this, and provides sources of more information for those interested in taking this further.

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The report pulls together the published evidence linking what we eat to how we feel – from foetal brain development to adolescent behaviour through to Alzheimer’s disease. Due to both the quantity and quality of the evidence (epidemiological, physiological and through randomised controlled trials), the report proposes that the changes to the food system seen in the past century may be partly responsible for the rise in mental health and behavioural problems at the same time. Issues addressed throughout the lifecycle include: preconceptual nutrition; maternal nutrition and foetal development; cognitive advantages of breastfeeding; diet and academic attainment and anti-social behaviour in childhood and adolescence; day-to-day food-related mood changes in adults; and cognitive decline in older people in relation to a life time of diet. Specific mental diseases discussed include: ADHD, depression, schizophrenia and dementia (particularly Alzheimer’s disease). This research is then placed in the context of our changing diets – addressing diet and evolution, the agricultural and Industrial revolution and the upheaval of the 20th century (namely processed foods, food additives, industrialised farming, animal fat, declining fish stocks and the increasing use of pesticides). The roles of specific nutrients such as essential fatty acids (omega-3, or fish oils, and omega-6), hydrogenated (or trans) fats and various micronutrients (e.g., selenium, magnesium, iron and vitamin C) are also examined. The report was researched and written by Courtney Van de Weyer.

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The report of this successful two-year project shows how hospitals can contribute to happier patients and staff, a better environment and more business for local farms and food companies, just by changing the food they buy and serve. By the end of 2005, one of the four London hospitals in the project was buying almost 15% of their food from local and/or organic sources, with the others making progress and more hospitals wanting to join in. However, there were problems too, and the report outlines how they were overcome, and what more government needs to do to make sustainable food in hospitals the norm, rather than the exception.

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The report outlines the health pros and cons of eating fish, summarises the environmental damage caused by both industrial fishing and fish farming, and lays bare the contradictions in government policy at both UK and EU level.

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This report places the crisis in children's diet-related health in the context of the unhealthy food environments which have become part-and-parcel of their every day lives. Using a range of examples from a number of policy areas (for example, control of tobacco advertising, alcohol promotion and marketing of breastmilk substitutes), the report explains how industry is unable, in a competitive market, to exercise the social responsibility required to make voluntary approaches successful. It also demolishes the many arguments used by the food and advertising industries to promote self-regulation rather than effective legislation.

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