This report, Food Futures, by the UK’s waste agency WRAP, looks at a broad range of food sustainability challenges for the future and at possible solutions.

Research published in Nature Climate Change shows that accelerated erosion due to agricultural management is a major threat to food security and soil sustainability. Erosion is a natural process that continually shapes the land surface. The removal of soil also removes carbon contained in that soil. With erosion removing top soil it removes the layer of the soil that has the greatest concentration of carbon.

This paper looks at public awareness of the environmental impacts of meat and attitudes to reducing meat consumption. The study, carried out in Scotland, was based on focus group discussions and individual interviews and tried to understand the cultural and social values associated with eating meat. It found a lack of awareness of the association between meat consumption and climate change, and suggested that individual dietary change will be difficult to achieve without addressing these values and beliefs.

This article in Environment Magazine (MIT press) discusses so called “ESG” investments - environmental, social, and governance  investment criteria. The article charts the history of socially and environmentally responsible investments and argues that screening of assets with environmental, social, or governance parameters in mind is growing.

On 30th October 2015 the FCRN highlighted a study by the World Health Organisation which concludes that processed meats cause cancer and classed red meat as “probable” cause.

This report entitled “Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective” is the fourth in a series of annual reports published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  It provides an assessment of how climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of individual extreme events.

This report by the World Bank highlights the acute threat of climate change to poor people that result from the impacts on food security. The key message is that efforts to curb climate change must be twinned with programmes to cut poverty, if we are to keep climate change from pushing more than 100 million people back into poverty in just 15 years (by 2030).

This white paper, produced by the independent sustainability company The Carbon Trust and sponsored by Quorn Foods, argues that greater diversity of main ingredients would be better for Britain both from a health and climate perspective. Increasing the diversity of UK protein choices is described as a practical way to promote more sustainable diets with lower impacts on health and environment.