The Land Use for Net Zero (LUNZ) Hub is a consortium founded in November 2023 to provide all four UK administrations with the rapid evidence they need to develop policies that will drive the UK land transformation required to achieve Net Zero by 2050, alongside other environmental targets. LUNZ has produced two films framing the perspectives of an array of land managers who are actively dealing with the challenges of trying to transition to net zero.

This report explores the relationship between food price inflation, energy prices and climate driven extreme weather events. The authors find that year-on-year extreme weather is exacerbating food price inflation, offsetting the dampening effect of falling energy prices in 2023 in the UK.

This report details the interconnectedness between food and fossil fuel consumption through the entire supply chain. The authors identify the key drivers of food system fossil fuel consumption, barriers to transformation and high-impact, no-regret opportunities to collaborate in the transformation of energy and food systems. 

This article explores the feasibility of achieving net negative emissions (which occurs when more greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere than are emitted) by 2050 through global food system transformation. Specifically, the authors assessed how various approaches to food system transformation may lead to reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and possibly increased carbon dioxide removal.

This report is based on the findings of the UK Geospatial Commission’s National Land Data Programme (NLDP). It explores how innovative data science (such as geospatial modelling, combining disparate data sets, and AI) can lead to better land-use management in the UK.

Hannah Ritchie, Head of Research at Our World in Data, has launched a new email newsletter called Sustainability by numbers, which discusses the numbers and data that are important for building a sustainable world. TABLE readers may be particularly interested in the issues Eating local is still not a good way to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet and Are meat substitutes really better for the environment than meat?

This paper estimates the environmental impacts (across four impact categories) of over 57,000 food products (found in the UK and Ireland) composed of multiple ingredients, filling a knowledge gap since previous analyses (such as Poore and Nemecek) compare only single foods. It also examines the relationship between the environmental impacts and nutritional characteristics of the products, concluding that more nutritious products are often (but not always) more sustainable as well. The study is co-authored by several members of Oxford’s Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) programme.

This paper examines the impacts of methane on climate, ecosystems and air pollution. It argues that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change limits its regulation of methane to the climate impacts of methane on a 100-year timeframe, ignoring both near-term climate impacts and wider impacts.

Replacing 20% of ruminant meat consumption with microbial protein - specifically mycoprotein from fungal mycelium - could offset increases in global pasture area, reduce methane emissions, and halve annual CO2 emissions from deforestation, according to this life cycle assessment (LCA). However, reductions in emissions from deforestation may plateau as the proportion of meat replaced by microbial protein grows. The paper discusses the methodological limitations of static (as opposed to dynamic) LCA.