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.

A report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been published , focusing on the environmental problems caused by nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrient flows and identifying the actions that could be taken to reduce excessive nutrient use.  The research was led by Mark Sutton at the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and carried out by 50 exports from 14 countries.

There has been an exchange of views between the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and GAIN, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition following the World Health Organisation’s statement that it will defer a decision as to whether GAIN should be accredited to the World Health Assembly.

Europe’s land footprint is 640 million hectares a year – an area equivalent to 1.5 times the size of Europe itself. This is the land required to make everything that we consume, from food to material products to fuel.

This very useful paper provides a much needed analysis of GHG emissions resulting from community urban food growing.  The study is located in the London Borough of Sutton ( a suburban part of london) and the area of production covers just under 3 hectares.  The study concludes that urban food prodution can deliver useful reductions in GHG emissions as compared with supermarket equivalents, provided that care is taken to produce the crops where there is the greatest environmental comparative advantage.