Earlier this month, the second edition of the EAT-Lancet study was published. Often referred to as the IPCC for agriculture and food, it aims to provide a view of where our agricultural and food systems need to be to align with the Paris agreement. However, compared to broad climate goals, it can be much more unsettling for readers as the “alignment” is both in the upstream part of the value chain and on our plates.

At first glance, it looks like another academic paper. But read carefully, and you’ll see it’s a roadmap for a food revolution that could make entire categories of products, and even companies, irrelevant.

1 – Why do we need an agrifood IPCC?

The goal of the EAT-Lancet recommendation is to address simultaneously three key challenges of our food system:

• The environmental damage caused by our current food system: as shown on the left-hand side graph, food and agriculture account for 30% of current global emissions. It is vital to understand that even a successful energy transition won’t keep us below 1.5°C. Substantial changes to our agricultural practices and our diets will be required.
• The injustices it creates globally between developed and underdeveloped countries.
• The increasing health issues related to food.

As shown on the graph, less than a per cent of the world lives in “safe and just” food countries, which combine a reliable source of food and a healthy diet that doesn’t stretch beyond the Earth’s planetary boundaries.

2 – What’s in the Planetary Health Diet?

Taking into account all these elements leads to the recommended Planetary Health Diet (PHD). It has not moved a lot since the previous report in 2019. The PHD is slightly more restrictive (2,400Kcal vs 2,500Kcal in 2019). As you can see in the table below, it is primarily a flexitarian diet with limited amounts of animal foods (one serving of dairy per day, one serving of meat per week, and a few eggs weekly)

It becomes then really clear that it is less a recommendation to eat differently but a recommendation to eat much less. Some countries, such as Japan, are already pretty much in line with the PHD, while others, notably in the West, simply eat too much of everything.

Beyond the environmental consequences of failing to stay below 1.5°C, the PHD also comes with tangible benefits:

• it could avoid up to ~15 million premature deaths/year
• $5 trillion in annual savings versus $200-500 billion in implementation costs.

3 – How do we get there, can we, and should we?

That’s the weak point of the EAT-Lancet study: it provides a clear picture of the current situation and of where we should be, but it doesn’t give clear instructions on how to get there. Compared to the energy transition, the equivalent food transition seems much harder.

Beyond a faster switch to regenerative agriculture, it requires international cooperation on issues like fisheries management and strong investments in sustainable agriculture in developing economies.

Countries should accept becoming increasingly interdependent to specialise in the crops and productions that are the most suited to their location. They should also engage in a voluntary decrease of about 75% of production in red meat (which should be even stronger in developed economies, which should restrict their meat and dairy consumption to align with the PHD).

Additionally, it is estimated today that this diet would cost about $2.8/day, making it out of reach for 1.6 billion people globally, making huge money transfers indispensable.

Let’s say that in the current global political context, this combination of global cooperation and local incentives (through tools like a tax on red meat in developed economies to incentivise consumers towards the PHD) seems highly optimistic. However, that’s where innovation should play a role. Through disruptive innovation, it should be possible to reach a diet that has a similar environmental and health impact without disrupting cultural behaviours as much:

• on the agricultural side, the development of highly productive and more resistant crops will decrease the need for nitrogen-based fertilisers
• mid-stream, new sustainable ingredients, including alternative proteins (from plant-based to cultivated meat) should bring serious benefits.

These technologies will also create local controversies (but at least they require much less global cooperation).

We don’t believe in a scenario (with the exclusion of some extreme adverse event) where we will be collectively able to reduce our food consumption significantly enough to have a climate impact. However, we believe in a “PHD+AgriFoodTech” diet where we should have a part of our diet (equivalent to the PHD) coming from traditional food sources, and the other part coming from new sources.

For both agrifood leaders and innovators, the PHD provides a framework which should be used to assess their portfolio and strategy. Depending on how compliant they are with the recommended diet, it should create an imperative to innovate on sustainability, adapt their portfolio, and secure their future supply chains.