The Worldwatch Institute has released the 2014 edition of its “State of the World” series. “Governing for Sustainability” examines how action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations.

The Oxfam campaign Behind the Brands has now been going for three years, its main goal being to change the way the food companies do business and eradicate hunger. The campaign targeted the top 10 global food and beverage companies and tried to get them to change on 7 important issues. 

A new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) describes methods for quantifying environmental pressures caused by European consumption patterns and economic production sectors, and shows the results from this approach.

In this Perspective article in the journal Science, the FCRN’s Tara Garnett articulates the need for a strong policy focus on sustainable healthy diets, and assesses the current state of research and understanding on the relationship between health and sustainability. 

Strong demand for vegetable oil has led to a boom in the Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil industries since 1990. Typically planted in extremely large monoculture plantations, the crop has been implicated in biodiversity loss and human rights issues.

As urban populations rise rapidly and concerns about food security increase, interest in urban agriculture has been renewed in both developed and developing countries. This book focuses on the sustainable development of urban agriculture and its relationship to food planning in cities.

In this article, researchers from Cranfield University, UK, examine the environmental burden associated with the production, manufacturing and distribution of potatoes, pasta and rice. The aim of the research is to highlight the difference that can be made to an individual’s environmental footprint (here focusing on water use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) by making dietary changes within food groups, rather than between them.