Sustainable nutrition

Analysis of sustainability impacts associated with different diets; deriving of strategies to support sustainable nutrition

Nutrition is a key factor for sustainable development and, if shaped sustainably, represents an important lever for counteracting undesirable developments such as nutrition-related diseases, burdens on the environment and climate, or controversial production and market practices. In order to contribute to sustainable development, nutritional behaviour and framework conditions in food systems must be designed in such a way that they lead to positive effects on health, environment, society and economy.

The research area “Sustainable Nutrition” deals with approaches and strategies to support sustainable nutrition. Starting point for research is impacts of nutrition on health, environment, society and economy. This work is an important precondition for understanding the increasingly complex interrelations in food systems and for deriving solutions and options for action. One example is the investigation of diets with different proportions of plant and animal-based foods under sustainability aspects ("Sustainability Analysis within the COPLANT-study").
Here the research focus is on the analysis of social impacts of nutrition. In addition, approaches are being explored and further developed to transfer impacts in the particular dimensions of sustainability into integrative sustainability assessments. Furthermore, the research area deals with concepts and objectives for sustainable nutrition that are currently under discussion. These form the normative basis for the design of transformation processes towards sustainable nutrition.

The work in its entirety, together with other research areas of the Department of Nutritional Behaviour, supports transformation processes in the field of nutrition in line with sustainable development (see also "Future-oriented nutritional behaviour").