Public panel supports sustainable dietary change

A Citizens’ Panel endorsed education, regulations and supporting farmers to help the UK transition to a healthier and more sustainable diet, says a new policy brief.

The Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC) Citizens’ Panel supported healthy and sustainable changes to the national diet, including reducing meat and dairy intake.

Participants suggested that the change should be encouraged through education, public engagement, working with food companies and supporting farmers.

90% of the panel supported stronger regulations to encourage low-carbon diets and restrict advertising for high-emissions foods.

They supported firm action to reduce food waste and packaging, increase the amount of locally and nationally sourced food, and support farmers to transition to more sustainable food production.

The EDRC’s policy brief ‘Engaging citizens on policy scenarios for dietary change’ was co-written by Dr Alice Garvey at the School of Earth and Environment.

Food sector emissions

Reducing emissions from the food sector is vital to meeting the UK’s climate targets.

The Climate Change Committee estimates that 11% of UK greenhouse gas emissions are caused by agriculture and land use.

In its latest report, it recommended that the UK population should aim to eat 25% less meat by 2040 to meet its carbon budget.

Meanwhile, a 2024 UK Government report states that approximately one quarter of purchased food is wasted – this misuses the resources taken to produce food, increases food costs and releases methane into the atmosphere as food decomposes.

The EDRC brought together its Citizens’ Panel to find out about the public’s interest in reducing energy demand from food systems and how this could be done fairly.

The Citizens’ Panel combined these discussions with technical modelling to create scenarios of possible future food systems.

The research team created model scenarios to find out the possible emissions reductions from the interventions that the panel discussed.

Encouraging dietary change

The panel-led scenario to encourage healthy and sustainable diet included:

• Healthy and sustainable school and public sector meals
• A traffic-light food labelling system with consistent definitions
• More of the food we eat produced in the UK
• A collaborative approach to farm subsidy reform that supports farmers to prioritise net zero, nature and food security
• Firm policies on food waste and packaging.

The panel discussed the importance of public engagement through channels including workplaces, shops, community groups, schools and media to make this happen.

In the model, this scenario was estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector by around 36% by 2050.

90% of panel members said this was the minimum level of action they’d like to see, and half of them wanted to see faster and deeper changes.

This could include increased regulations on food advertising and price caps on healthy, sustainable food purchases.

More information

• Read ‘Engaging citizens on policy scenarios for dietary change.’
• The policy brief was co-written by Dr Andy Yuille, Dr Alice Garvey and Dr Sarah Higginson from the EDRC.