A just food system within planetary boundaries

A new report on healthy, sustainable, and just food system by the EAT-Lancet Commission presents new evidence on how to nourish the growing world population in a way that is fair for all — while staying within planetary boundaries.

The global context has shifted since 2019, when the EAT–Lancet Commission published its first report on the Planetary Health Diet (PHD), a global reference diet based on the best available science that supports optimal health outcomes. In six years, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical instability and soaring food prices have increased existing vulnerabilities.

Released in October 2025, the updated planetary health diet is compatible with many foods, cultures, dietary patterns, traditions, and individual preferences. And according to the new data, a shift to the PHD could avert approximately 15 million deaths per year by providing nutritional adequacy and diminishing the risks of non-communicable diseases.

Towards a fair food system

While the first Commission defined food group ranges for a healthy diet and identified the food system’s share of planetary boundaries in 2019, the updated findings were complemented with an analysis of the social foundations for a just food system, integrating new data and perspectives on distributive, representational, and recognitional justice.

• Distributive justice involves the fair distribution of important resources, opportunities, or capabilities (eg, healthy food, decent wages, and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment) and the fair allocation of benefits and burdens.
• Representational justice concerns decision-making and power, including formal and fair policy-making processes, and broader societal decision-making processes. This dimension of justice requires a fair distribution of power, the protection of key freedoms, and political voice and representation, including meaningful participation by those most affected by injustice.
• Recognitional justice manifests in the structures and norms of society, and recognises a diversity of intersecting identities and experiences that are shaped by cultural, legal, historical, and spatial contexts; recognitional justice involves people from all social groups being able to participate as equals.

Climate KIC CEO, Kirsten Dunlop, is a member of the EAT Advisory Board. She says: “The 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission report builds the evidence for food transformation that can and must be equitable: protecting farmers’ livelihoods, respecting culture and ensuring access to healthy nutrition for all. We cannot afford to think of food and nature as sectoral issues; they are the connective tissue linking climate, biodiversity, health and justice. Today, the world needs integrated innovation and governance across policy, finance, and enterprise to restore the systems on which our survival depends. We need to invest in the food-environment-climate nexus as the cornerstone of health and resilience, and to do so with steady nerves, justice and imagination.”

Here are our five takes about the report:

1. Food is connected to many other systems 

The transformation of our food system will be fundamental to address the climate, biodiversity, health, and justice crises. In fact, the central position of the food system emphasises the interdependent nature of these crises and highlights the need to position food-related systems change as a global integrator across economic, governance, and policy domains.

The report states that no safe solution to climate and biodiversity crises is possible without a global transformation of our food system. Even if we transition away from fossil fuels, our food system, which currently accounts for roughly 30 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions, will cause the world to breach the Paris Climate agreement of limiting global mean surface temperature to 1.5°C. Transforming our food system, according to the PHD, could cut these emissions by more than half.

2. The inequalities of our current food system

If our current food system has sustained the current world population growth, and hunger has declined in some regions, recent conflicts and climate change impacts have reversed this positive trend. Today, more than half of the world population still struggles to access healthy diets. The report also finds that inequities in access to healthy diets, decent work conditions, and healthy environments, disproportionately affect marginalised groups in low-income regions.

At the same time, the diets of the richest 30 per cent of the global population contribute to more than 70 per cent of the environmental pressures from food system. And only about 1 per cent of the world population is currently in the ‘safe and just space’, where people’s rights and food needs are met within planetary boundaries.

The transformation of our food system should therefore consider the importance of the right to live and work within a non-toxic environment and a stable climate system, as environmental degradation is, once again, impacting the health and wellbeing of the most marginalised communities. Another important aspect of this transformation is to ensure a living wage and meaningful representation which would allow people to actively participate in building healthy, sustainable, and just food systems.

3. Food is responsible for the breaching of planetary boundaries

How and where food is produced, which foods are produced and consumed, and how much is lost and wasted, all contribute to planetary boundary transgressions. In fact, food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions, driving the transgression of five breached boundaries. For instance, unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss.

4. Justice is key to accelerate the food system transformation

The Commission says that a fair distribution of opportunities and resources are the basis of a successful food system transformation. Today, there are power imbalances and discriminatory structures at play that prevent these rights from being met. The consequences can be harmful to people’s health and undermine the freedom and agency of informal food workers.

The report emphasis on the importance to ensure liveable wages and collective bargaining, while regulating and limiting market concentration and improving transparency, accountability, representation, and access to information.

5. An opportunity and the need to build coalition

Following the recommendations from the EAT–Lancet Commission, a reimagined food system could supply a healthy diet for 9·6 billion people (with modest impacts on average food costs) while reducing environmental pressures on climate, biodiversity, water, and pollution. But no single action is sufficient to ensure a healthy, just, and sustainable food system, concludes the report.

The unprecedented levels of action needed to shift diets, improve production, and enhance justice, will require building coalitions with stakeholders from inside and outside the food system, developing national and regional roadmaps for implementation, unlocking finance for the transformation, and rapidly putting joint plans into action.

8 steps towards a just food system transformation

To advance the goals of a healthy, sustainable, and just food system by 2050, the Commission proposed eight solutions, each accompanied by specific actions and policy measures:

1. Create food environments to increase demand for healthy diets, ensuring they are more accessible and affordable;
2. Protect and promote healthy traditional diets;
3. Implement sustainable and ecological intensification practices;
4. Apply strong regulations to prevent loss of remaining intact ecosystems;
5. Improve infrastructure, management, and consumer behaviour change to reduce food loss and waste;
6. Secure decent working conditions;
7. Ensure meaningful representation for all;
8. Recognise and protect marginalised groups.

In this moment of increasing instability, the transformation of our food system offers an unprecedented opportunity to build the resilience of environmental, health, economic, and social systems, and is uniquely positioned to enhance human wellbeing.

Read the report

At Climate KIC, we’re building a movement for resilient, regenerative food systems by bridging the gap between policy, innovation and practice. From supporting farmers in adopting climate-smart agriculture and renewable energy solutions, to facilitating dialogue between policymakers and practitioners at the European Carbon Farming Summit, we’re demonstrating that sustainable agriculture is practical, scalable, and economically viable.

Whether you’re a farmer pioneering new practices, a researcher developing innovations, an organisation committed to climate action, or a supporter interested in transforming food systems around the world, we want to hear from you. Visit our #FoodFutures hub to learn how you can partner with us, and join our dedicated farmer community to shape the future of agriculture.