Sustainable diets are those diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Learn more about Bioversity International's work in understanding and promoting sustainable diets: http://bit.ly/17Gk5iK

1. Nutrition, Biodiversity and Sustainable Diets:
Methods and Indicators for Sustainable Diets
Bruce Cogill, PhD – 15 April 2013 – CGRFA, FAO, Rome

2. Investing in a
future with
sustainable diets:
The approach of
Bioversity
International

3. Dimensions
Sustainable diets are those diets with low
environmental impacts which contribute to food and
nutrition security and to healthy life for present and
future generations.
Sustainable diets protect and respect biodiversity
and ecosystems while being culturally
acceptable, accessible, affordable, nutritionally
adequate, safe, and healthy.
Source: FAO and Bioversity International. Sustainable diets and biodiversity. FAO 2012. Also the INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM:
BIODIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABLE DIETS UNITED AGAINST HUNGER, 3-5 NOVEMBER 2010, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION
OF THE UN, ROME
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4. Why metrics?
Metrics target three principal objectives:
• Inform civil society, industry, public
officials and all stakeholders
• Measure progress toward defined
goals
• Aid decision making processes.
What is counted is what counts...
What are Metrics?
• An organized system of information
combined to provide a perspective.
Source: Fanzo et al. (2012)
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5. A nutrition-driven perspective (1)
…is what we need…
• Increasing recognition that Food
Security is also about food quality, not
just supply or access
• Increasing focus on dietary patterns,
rather than single food or nutrient
• Increasing demand from consumers
about the health, environmental,
economic and social impacts of their Source: Wellen and Hotamisligil (2005)
food choices.
Research and policy agenda on agriculture and food system
sustainability has to introduce nutrition at the core of its dimensions.
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6. A nutrition-driven perspective (2)
Promising current initiatives:
 A revised Mediterranean diet as a main framework for
sustainable diets in the Mediterranean countries
(Bioversity, CIISCAM, CIHEAM, FDM, FAO and
others);
 Assessing environment/nutrition trade-offs:
Comparison of nutritional adequacy and GHG
emission performances for selected diets (INRA,
INSERM and others);
 Defining optimal diets: “Livewell” plate, a diet
designed to meet both dietary requirements for health
and GHG emission targets (U Aberdeen and others).
Main limitations: Environmental impacts restricted to a few issues (GHGE) + Use of
average impact by food item without considering production processes.
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7. Complex systems of
environment, agricultu
re, nutrition and health

8. A system of indicators (1)
Types of sustainability indicators systems:
• Dimension-based (CIHEAM & FAO/SFSP,
2012)
• Issue-based (FAO/SAFA, 2012)
• Goal-based (Feenstra et al., 2010)
• Causal framework (OECD/PSR, 1993)...
In search of the multi-dimensional dynamic
architecture...
Source: adapted from Bell and Morse (2008)
To gather consensus among the scientific and international community, participatory
methods can suitably help in deriving a system of indicators…
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9. A system of indicators (2)
Example (CIHEAM & FAO, 2012):
The system of MD sustainability indicators :
• Dimension-based framework, coupled
with issues/priority challenges
• Interpretation of sustainability as an ability
to satisfy a set of goals.
However…
• A sole outcome approach – no causal
factor to guide research and policy
• Biodiversity indicator(s) to be
determined
• How to quantify, normalize, weight and
aggregate the highlighted themes or
issues?
Source: CIHEAM/FAO (2012)
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10. A system-orientated approach
Diet outcomes: Food attributes or system outputs ?
• The concept of sustainability evolved from an approach to agriculture to a
system property (Hansen, 1996)
• Diets – and related outcomes – are the results of complex interactions among
interdependent components within food systems
• Food systems can best be conceptualized as Coupled Human-Environment
Systems.
A system approach enables the necessary consideration of the many intricately
related factors involved in getting food from farm to fork.
Reconciling the indispensable nutrition perspective with a system
approach requires multidisciplinary assessment methods
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11. What to do?

12. Short term initiative
Advancing through sustainable diets
A quantitative and causal factor approach:
Selecting a reliable and validated set of indicators to describe, monitor and evaluate
the environmental impacts, economic viability, social welfare and health outcomes of
a given diet.
Methods:
• Review of about 200 indicators
• Combined Issue/Vulnerability-based evaluation framework
• DELPHI expert consultation protocol
• Joining efforts, gathering consensus: Panel of about 100 participants
• Application to Mediterranean countries (with a focus on France/Spain)
• Co-partner: CIHEAM.
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13. Medium term initiative
A fully systemic approach:
Linking agrobiodiversity and diet diversity at farm level: A farm-household bio-
economic model to assess the contribution of agrobiodiversity to dietary quality and
diversity.
Methods:
• Bio-economic model: Integrated system combining biophysical and socio-
economic models
• Farm-household system simulation: Expanding existing model to include
agrobiodiversity and diet diversity at both ends
• Focus on small-holder farmers
• Multidisciplinarity: Agronomists, ecologists, economists, nutritionists…
• Application to Sub Saharan Africa
• Potential partners: JRC Sevilla, Wageningen University, CIHEAM, INRA
Montpellier.
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14. Conclusion
Sustainable diets stresses that:
• Nutrition is a core dimension of sustainability of agriculture and food systems
• For guiding change, characterization should be system-oriented, predictive
and allow diagnosis
• System analysis and simulation models are tools that incorporate all these
elements
• …joint efforts are key.
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15. Supported by the Nina and Daniel Carasso
Foundation and the CG Research Programme
Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)
For more info: www.bioversityinternational.org
t.allen@cgiar.org cogill@cgiar.org