So, what did we learn from #climateweeknyc, which wrapped last week?
Here are our three big takeaways.
🍲Food is now firmly on the climate menu
The event saw its first Food Day, co-organised by our partners Tilt Collective. This reflected a trend in the climate movement, with serious thought and work going into how to decarbonise our food system, rather than ‘climate mitigation’ being synonymous only with reducing fossil fuel use.
Another promising sign on Food Day was who was in the room: 🏥 health, 🌎climate and 🐄 animal welfare advocates were all there, calling for more plants and fewer animal-sourced foods in our diets. These three communities can build an impactful and long-lasting movement. It’s a powerful collaboration, which gives us hope that we can bring our food system in line with human and planetary health goals.
💰Food systems work is chronically underfunded by climate philanthropy
We cannot meet Paris climate goals without tackling emissions from food, but only 2% of climate philanthropy investment is currently directed to efforts to fix our food system. We hope events like Food Day help philanthropy reappraise its focus on fossil fuels to give food system transformation efforts the investment they need to succeed and have a lasting impact on the future of our planet. As with everything related to the desperate climate crisis we are now in, this needs to happen quickly.
🔥Cities and the private sector are blazing a trail, with the most exciting work on diet-shifts
The host city itself 🗽has an impressive plant powered carbon challenge, a pioneering approach to rebalance the plant vs animal protein offering across the five boroughs.
In a session we hosted alongside Plant Based Foods Association, we heard from Daniella Vega about the groundbreaking commitments of retailer Ahold Delhaize to shift its protein ratio in favour of plants, putting it in the vanguard of major retailers in Europe combining the health, climate, animal welfare and business benefits of the protein transition.
🗓️ What about next year? How do we build on this promising week?
Now food is on the climate menu, we think it should be a signature dish.
Fixing our food system is so intrinsic to averting climate catastrophe that we need a concerted focus on it. Why not a Food & Climate Week?
And this time next year, we sincerely hope more than 2% of climate philanthropy is dedicated to efforts to fix our food system.
Climate Group Robin Willoughby Sarah Lake
🌱 Author - Processing the discourse over plant-based meat 🍔 Churchill Fellow
3moIt was fantastic to meet you Emily Armistead! Exciting to hear what you're working on at Madre Brava! For those who couldn't make the Imperial College London event, the livestream is online - https://www.imperial.ac.uk/sustainable-protein/panel-discussion-and-reception/