How can businesses create positive change towards sustainable and resilient food systems? – Egypt Today

How can businesses create positive change towards sustainable and resilient food systems? – Egypt Today

In recent decades, food systems have delivered major human development benefits through massive increases in productivity. Yet, today’s systems are no longer fit for purpose as we battle mounting hunger and challenges around obesity. Food systems are currently failing to deliver healthy diets, whilst at the same time bearing high hidden costs - amounting to some $12 trillion each year 1 - and having a detrimental impact on our environment. They generate about 1/3 of global greenhouse gas emissions and are the single largest contributor to biodiversity loss.

At this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, we saw the first ever Food Systems Pavilion. It is a positive recognition of the need to relook at how our current global food systems operate, and an opportunity to develop actions and solutions to create more sustainable and resilient food value chains.

As world leaders, governments, businesses, and changemakers gathered for COP27, the focus needs to be on how system thinking, science-based decisions and collaborative innovation can help drive the decarbonisation of food systems for the achievement of the Paris Agreement goals.

Moving from discussion to implementation isn’t enough. A long-term, collaborative approach needs to be at the heart of all pledges, initiatives, and