Review of sustainable diets: are nutritional objectives and low-carbon-emission objectives compatible?
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Review of sustainable diets: are nutritional objectives and low-carbon-emission objectives compatible? Erica Doro 1 & Vincent Réquillart 2 Received: 7 October 2019 / Accepted: 9 June 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Food systems in developed countries face one major challenge, namely the promotion of diets that are both healthy and generate less greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). In this article, we review papers evaluating the impact of a change in diets on both health and GHGE. We address the following questions: How big are the health and environmental impacts that could be induced by a switch to healthier diets? In monetary value, what is the relative importance of the health impact and the environmental impact? Is it possible to design an economic policy to increase global welfare that also takes into account the externalities on both health and the environment? Since the way the change in diet is modeled is a key issue, we classify papers according to the methodology used for simulating diet changes: ad hoc scenarios, optimized diets, and economic modeling. We find that it is possible to design economic policies that have positive impacts on both dimension. Because the substitutions/complementarities between food products are complex, it is not granted that a policy targeting one dimension will generate positive effects on the other dimensions. However, given the diversity of substitution and the complementarity possibilities between products, it is possible to design a policy that does improve both dimensions. A carbon-based tax policy that targets the products with a high greenhouse gas content (e.g., meat products) and reinvests the revenues collected with the tax to subsidize the consumption of fruit and vegetables, is likely to have positive effects on both dimensions. Keywords Food . Consumer . Diets . Nutritional policy . Health . Climate change .
Greenhouse gas . Environmental policy
JEL codes I18 . Q18 . Q54
* Vincent Réquillart vincent.requillart@tse–fr.eu
1
Toulouse School of Economics, University of Toulouse Capitole, 1 Esplanade de l’Université, 31000 Toulouse, France
2
Toulouse School of Economics, INRAE, University of Toulouse Capitole, 1 Esplanade de l’Université, 31000 Toulouse, France
E. Doro, V. Réquillart
Introduction It is now well recognized that low-quality diets are an important risk factor for contracting a non-communicable disease (WHO 2010). As a consequence, most developed countries have put in place nutritional policies that take various forms, such as healthy eating guidelines, information campaigns, food taxes, or food reformulation (e.g., Traill et al. 2013). Another important hurdle that countries face is climate change, which is linked to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) (IPCC 2013). According to recent estimates, food systems are responsible for 15 to 28% of the totality of GHGE in developed countries (Garnett 2011). To limit the increase in temperature to 2 °C, ambitious reduction goals have been designed. For example, the European Commission set the
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