Oxfam has published a report, Behind the Brands, which assesses the ethical performance of the ‘big 10’ food companies against criteria such as transparency of supply chains and operations, ensuring the rights of workers, protection of women's rights, the management of water and land use, policies to reduce the impacts of climate change and ensuring farmers’ rights.

The British Biochar Foundation is inviting people to sign up to its website. Details as follows. Our aim is to provide a place for developers, producers, enthusiasts and anyone else who is interested, to come together to share knowledge, experience, ideas and contacts and to act as a platform and catalyst for the emerging biochar industry.

At the University of Gothenburg in Sweden a new Land Rights Research Initiative (LARRI) was launched in late 2012. The research initiative aims at creating a platform for discussion, exchange of ideas and information as well as for promoting collaboration among researchers, students and other actors interested in land rights issues from a poverty and development perspective in a context of global change.

A paper published in Nature Climate Change suggests that planting trees for use as a biofuel source, near populated areas, is likely to increase human deaths due to inhalation of ozone. Increased levels of isoprene emitted from such trees, when interacting with other air pollutants can lead to increased levels of ozone in the air which might also lead to lower crop yields.

This paper looks at the attitudes of different consumer segments to reducing meat consumption / consuming alternatives to meat consumption. It finds that general awareness of the environmental impacts of meat consumption is fairly low, and that while there is some acceptance of consuming less meat or consuming alternatives, this is not the case for all consumers and varies by consumer segment.

There seems to be a strong focus on livestock at the moment.  Greenpeace International has also entered the field now, with a new report, Ecological Livestock. Focusing on Europe, the report explores livestock production and consumption can be reduced to fit within ecological limits, such as biodiversity, climate change and water use.

The environmental organisation, WWF has published a new report entitled A balance of healthy and sustainable food choices for France, Spain and Sweden. It builds on the Livewell project undertaken in the UK which considers what a healthy acceptable and lower GHG  diet might look like.