Green Monday is a global sustainability initiative that was designed to promote green lifestyle choices.  In this video Phil Valko, assistant vice chancellor for sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis, talks about the global Green Monday initiative and how making a small change to one’s food choices can have a major impact.

The first progress report of A Better Retailing Climate initiative has been published. It describes how retailers since 2005 have improved their performance against the environmental targets set out in the initiative, and that they have:

This paper investigates the environmental impact of the diets of Australian households at different income quintiles. The paper looked at 2003 household consumption and argues that income affects the environmental impacts of household diet, with higher income corresponding to higher impacts. The higher the income bracket the more was spent on food and this translated through to a higher environmental impact (GHG CO2e, water, waste, energy) at higher incomes.

This major study compiles and analyses global-level data to assess relationships among diet, environmental sustainability and human health.  It evaluates the potential future environmental impacts of the global dietary transition before exploring some possible solutions to the diet–environment–health trilemma. 

The Livestock Research Group (LRG) of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) and Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform have together compiled information about greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation options currently available for the livestock sector, and produced a roadmap of emerging options based on current research. The aim is to help make progress on meeting global food demand while reducing the food industry’s contribution to global climate change.

Sentience Mosaic hosts live online debates where a variety of topics related to animal sentience are discussed. The description of the event was as follows: “Livestock production is responsible for a large proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, livestock related gas emissions are expected to increase rapidly in coming years if no action is taken. Some propose that further intensification of animal production, in order to increase yield per animal, is the answer to reducing gas emissions. However, many argue that this is unethical and is not a solution.

This updated version further develops the Planetary Boundaries concept, which was first published in 2009.  In their original outline of the concept the authors identified nine key global processes and systems that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth System – the interactions of land, ocean, atmosphere and life that together provide conditions upon which our societies depend.  They argued that if these natural processes are disrupted beyond a certain ‘boundary’ point, the consequences could be irreversible and lead to abrupt environmental change, making life on earth very hard for humans.

This new study finds that GHG emissions from growing crops and raising livestock are now higher than from deforestation and land use change. It combines three global datasets of greenhouse gas emissions for the 'Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses' (AFOLU) sector. It includes emissions from different sectors and human activities such as deforestation, clearing and burning biomass, and from raising and feeding livestock.

In her first report to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, said that a human-rights based approach to food security is necessary to provide access to affordable, nutritious food for all and to eliminate hunger.  The report describes renewed political commitment as essential to advance the right to adequate food.