News • Climate Change and Nature
Major cities commit to climate-friendly food policies
International cities with 64 million citizens, including London in the UK, have committed to using food to address the global climate emergency.
In a declaration co-signed in Copenhagen on 10 October 2019, the 14 major cities committed to working with their citizens to achieve a ‘Planetary Health Diet’ for all, by implementing the following measures by 2030:
- Aligning food procurement to the Planetary Health Diet, ideally sourced from organic agriculture.
- Supporting an overall increase of healthy plant-based food consumption in cities by shifting away from unsustainable, unhealthy diets.
- Reducing food loss and waste by 50% from a 2015 baseline.
- Within two years of endorsing the declaration, working with citizens, businesses, public institutions and other organisations to develop a joint strategy for implementing these measures and achieving these goals inclusively and equitably, and incorporating this strategy into their Climate Action Plans.
Each city will develop and share an action plan, including baseline figures and environmental, health, social, and economic co-benefits where available, upon which they will regularly report.
The C40 Climate Cities network that is coordinating the initiative says that eating a sustainable diet and avoiding food waste could cut greenhouse gas emissions from the food we eat by more than 60%. The ‘Planetary Health Diet’ could save 11 million lives each year, if adopted universally, while dramatically reducing emissions and supporting a global population of 10 billion people.
The cities signing the C40 Good Food Cities Declaration are Barcelona, Copenhagen, Guadalajara, Lima, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Oslo, Paris, Quezon City, Seoul, Stockholm, Tokyo and Toronto. These 14 signatory cities serve 500 million meals per year - in schools, hospitals, and other public buildings, and are improving availability and affordability of delicious, nutritious and sustainable food for their 64 million citizens.
Read the C40 cities press release here
Read the C40 cities food declaration here
Read Sustain's new briefing Every Mouthful Counts, on the role of food in city-based responses to climate and nature emergency, as part of our support for the Sustainable Food Cities Network
Published Saturday 12 October 2019
Climate Change and Nature: Sustain has taken a keen interest in the rapidly accumulating evidence about the effect of food and farming on climate change and nature, as scientific evidence emerges that our food system is a very significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss.
