Potencijali i izazovi zelene tranzicije u zemljama Zapadnog Balkana

The purpose of the article is to study the specifics of financing investment projects on the principles of sustainability and circularity, the demand for which will grow in the conditions of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, which will take place taking into account the European integration imperatives of the international economic policy of Ukraine. It is proven that “sustainability” is a kind of framework concept that simultaneously imposes restrictions and creates opportunities for attracting capital. In the conditions of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, it becomes promising to increase in the portfolio of investment projects those that are oriented towards the implementation of circular business models that serve as a tool for implementing green and circular transitions. Revision of value and supply chains taking into account the “dominant of circularity” is an imperative of the “green” European integration course.The circular economic model is an innovative platform and ensures sustainable development by moving from a linear model based on consumption and recycling to one in which the service life of products is maximized, natural resources are reused, and materials and waste are minimized. Currently, three distinct cycles of circularity are distinguished, which are gradually becoming wider: closing resource cycles, which is determined by the relatively traditional economic system; slowing down resource cycles and material flows through the continuation and intensification of the use of products to preserve their value and cost over time; narrowing resource cycles through more efficient use of materials, resources and products of the linear system. The transformation processes taking place in the financial sector under the influence of the greening of financial policies not only of companies, but also of the Central Banks of the leading countries of the world, show that ignoring the sustainability factor and non-compliance with ESG criteria will affect the credit ratings of institutions in particular and reputational positions in general. “Green” factors increasingly aggressively determine the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to apply for grant support for financial provision of circular and sustainable projects. Circular, green and energy transitions in the context of sustainable development will act as a universal tool for achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will make it possible to attract financial resources from special funds that deal with solving global development problems. Europe strives to become the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The EU must transform into a fair and prosperous society with a modern and competitive economy. This highlights the need for a holistic and cross-sectoral approach, in which all relevant policy areas contribute to achieving the ultimate climate-related goal. The implementation of environmental initiatives at the global, regional, inter-country and macro-, meso-, micro-levels is facilitated by political initiatives of actors at the global, regional and national levels. Therefore, The European Union (EU), having adopted ambitious goals of achieving climate neutrality, uses the European Green Deal, which is fundamentally capable of modifying the investment and financial landscape, which should be taken into account when selecting investment projects within the framework of post-war reconstruction programs. In the process of post-war reconstruction of regions, the challenges of solving the problems of energy security, resource security, water resources management will be on the agenda. Ukraine during the post-war development has all the prerequisites for acquiring the status of a green and circular center of Europe. In the context of decentralization, the coordination of relevant initiatives becomes significantly more complicated: on the one hand, the liberalization of the institutional space provides a lot of flexibility to municipalities and communities, on the other hand, post-war socio-economic development creates a demand for strategic planning of Ukraine's place in the international division of labor, and therefore - strategizing its industrial development on the basis of sustainability. Under these conditions, the European Green Deal can become a kind of strategic framework that will clearly define the standards for greening business principles. It is fully foreseen that attracting financing from EU funds will involve increasing requirements for corporate social responsibility of enterprises.

A “lifeline out of the <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 crisis”? An ecofeminist critique of the European Green Deal

The European Green Deal (EGD) represents the EU’s central strategy for achieving climate neutrality by 2050. It has sparked broad scholarly interest, particularly regarding its governance innovations, discursive framing, and eco-social implications. While Europe’s green agenda has proven resilient in times of crisis, questions remain about its transformative potential. In this introduction, we set the stage for the Symposium Europe’s Green Transition – Policy Instruments and their Politicization by shifting focus from high-level ambitions to the contested politics of implementation. We explore key dimensions of political contestation within the EU’s ecological transition and argue that policy instruments are crucial yet underexplored sites of conflict in Europe’s green transition. As the contributions to this Symposium illustrate, the politics of policy instrument choice offer a valuable analytical lens for understanding why ecological change often unfolds incrementally and how it is shaped and limited by structural, institutional, and discursive constraints.

Market fundamentalism (or neoliberalism) has proven to be a crisisprone economic model. Within this model, a number of in-built structural imbalances and their interactions have contributed to a downward spiral in economic performance. The end point of this evolution is a multi-crisis in which geopolitics has become an integral macroeconomic variable. Because geopolitics does not function as an antidote but rather as a remedy with predominantly counterproductive effects, the global economy has persistently lost recovery momentum and slipped into deeper crises, while human society simultaneously undergoes geopolitical regression. In such a context, preserving strategic autonomy becomes a particularly demanding task for any national economy. For Serbia, as a small, open, middle-income, landlocked economy on a convergence path toward the EU, this challenge is especially pronounced. These days, strategic autonomy entails a clear vision for accelerating the green transition through a new industrialization based on climate-neutral technologies, primarily in the energy sector and land-use industries. In this paper, we explore key insights into the efforts required to energize the green transition as a roadmap for reversing, or at the very least decelerating, the adverse dynamics of the current economic conjuncture. Serbia serves as the focal point of this analysis, with particular emphasis on the green energy transition as a critical pillar of this complex endeavor. The authors hope that the proposed platform for the green energy transition will be recognized as both feasible and implementable. The zero step in Serbia’s green energy transition is the build-up of a nature-centric mindset capable of fostering a so-called “ecological civilization” in the near future. To achieve this, two coordination mechanisms must be combined: the invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of the state. The paper also addresses two additional issues. First, it examines the specific characteristics of investments in biomass-based energy technologies. Second, it analyzes the policy mix required to stimulate investment in related technologies for renewable energy and land-use industries, carbon capture and utilization, grid optimization, lithium production, and other sectors integral to the green transition (e.g., the EV value chain). Building on the preceding line of reasoning, the paper is organized into five main sections, in addition to the Introduction and Conclusion. Part 1 examines the root causes and key deficiencies of market fundamentalism. Part 2 discusses the necessity of the green transition as a pathway toward ecological civilization. Part 3 elaborates a “to-be” scenario for Serbia, based on a circular growth model and a heterodox economic policy platform. Part 4 assesses Serbia’s economic preparedness for the green energy transition. Finally, Part 5, the paper’s pivotal section, presents a portfolio of green energy projects, providing detailed explanations of biomass-based energy production, which is proposed as the flagship project within Serbia’s broader green energy transition agenda.

Цель статьи – представить перспективы российского ТЭК в условиях современных вызовов мировой экономики, включая проявившиеся проблемы внедрения «зелёной повестки». Сомнительность антропогенной версии потепления, технологические и экономические проблемы «зелёной энергетики», социальные проблемы «зелёной экономики» ставят под вопрос целесообразность ускоренного «зелёного перехода», который пока приводит к сокращению инвестиций в углеводородную энергетику (а также к репрессивной политике по отношению к рациональным экономическим и социальным моделям). «Зелёный энергопереход» ещё не обеспечен технологически, крайне затратен, а в иных случаях ведёт к возникновению новых монополий и переделу рынков. Российским ответом на «зелёную повестку» должны стать «зелёные баррели» попутного газа. В вопросе о влиянии геополитических рисков следует учитывать, что рост напряжённости на Ближнем Востоке или на путях транспортировки углеводородов в Индийском океане будет вести к росту дефицита сырья, тогда как геополитический кризис на Тихом океане повлечёт падение спроса. Санкционное давление является проблемой для российской энергетической отрасли. Угроза дестабилизации глобальной валютно-финансовой системы требует ускорить создание ее альтернативного формата. Нарастание кризисных тенденций в глобальном ТЭК из-за истощения старых месторождений и нехватки инвестиций в новые перспективно для российского ТЭК как для мирового игрока. Вследствие этого возрастают потребности российского ТЭК в развитии систем логистики и транспортировки, платёжных, страховых и кредитных инструментов, а также методов регулирования внутреннего рынка в целях сбалансирования интересов производителей и потребителей. The purpose of this article is to present the prospects of the Russian fuel and energy sector on the background of the challenges of the global economy that are relevant to it, including the emerging problems of implementing the "green agenda". The dubiousness of the anthropogenic version of warming, the technological and economic problems of "green energy", the social problems of the "green agenda" call into question the expediency of an accelerated "green transition", which so far leads to a reduction in investments in hydrocarbon energy (as well as to repressive policies towards rational economic and social models). The "green energy transition" has not yet been technologically secured, is extremely costly, and in other cases leads to the emergence of new monopolies and the redistribution of markets. The Russian response to the "green agenda" should be "green barrels" of associated gas. On the issue of the impact of geopolitical risks, it should be borne in mind that an increase in tension in the Middle East or on the routes of transportation of hydrocarbons in the Indian Ocean will lead to an increase in the shortage of raw materials, while the geopolitical crisis in the Pacific Ocean will lead to a drop in demand. Although sanctions pressure is a problem for the Russian energy industry, and the threat of destabilization of the global monetary and financial system requires accelerating the creation of an alternative one, the increase in crisis trends in the global fuel and energy sector due to the depletion of old deposits and lack of investment in new ones is promising for the Russian fuel and energy sector as a global player. As a result, the needs of the Russian fuel and energy sector are increasing in the development of logistics and transportation systems, payment, insurance and credit instruments, as well as methods of regulating the domestic market in order to balance the interests of players and consumers.

Green growth and the transition towards green growth are gaining scientific and public interest across Africa at an unprecedented rate. The Paris Agreement ratification by all 54 member states and the African Union (AU) goals in its Agenda 2063 on green economies are sufficient evidence of this. This is in line with the European Green Deal (EGD) aspirations, which envisages making Europe a carbon neutral economy by 2050. One of the EGD’s four main pillars is sustainable food systems. The success of EGD is premised on its ability to inspire and support green transition and effective climate action globally. The borderless nature of climate change necessitates a holistic approach to ensure the EU’s green transition does not come at the cost of development elsewhere. The main challenge is finding Africa’s space and position within the desired holistic approach, as Africa’s economy is agriculturally driven. One key African agricultural sub-sector significantly impacting livelihoods is livestock, which supports up to 80% of the rural livelihoods and which grapples with challenges in satisfying the needs of a fast-growing population. What could the EU green transition mean to this sector? We established that between 2010–2019, the African livestock population grew exponentially, and feed production followed the same path, with the share of land under forests, grasslands and meadows declining drastically. Over the same period, the percentage of land under arable farming increased while the animal-based protein and meat imports curve grew exponentially. This situation puts the continent in a dilemma about finding a sustainable solution for the food–feed and environmental nexus. Against this backdrop, a myriad of questions arises on how the green transition can be established to promote mitigating any loss that might occur in the process. We conducted a detailed sectoral trend analysis based on Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) statistics to find plausible solutions and pathways to achieve a greener transition. We coupled it with intensive policy mapping to develop science-policy-driven solutions that could promote the green transition sustainably. To sustainably accelerate the sectoral growth trajectory while addressing climate change, we recommend adopting and implementing raft measures geared towards increased sectoral efficiency, effectiveness, innovativeness and a holistic approach to the problem. Adopting transformative policies can promote the sector’s competitiveness through incentivisation, technological adoption, financial support, market support and increased awareness of its importance in sustainable development. However, exercising caution in implementing these practices is crucial to ensure there is no leakage effect in implementing the EGD across Africa and beyond.

The ‘European Green Deal’ (EGD) is a set of communications from the European Commission that outlines EU roadmap to climate neutrality by 2050. The policy envisions that, with the facilitation of speedy and just ‘green transition’, the goals of environmental protection and economic development can be reconciled. This article offers a language-focused critical study of the EGD. After giving an overview of neoliberal ‘discourses of sustainability’ and explaining the notion of ‘interdiscursivity’ in CDS, it presents the results of a close thematic analysis supported by keyword and concordance analysis of representations of ‘environment’ and ‘climate’ on the one hand, and ‘economy’ and ‘transition’ on the other. This study attends to salient language patterns and reveals how interdiscursive crossovers are established to normalise ‘sustainability’ as the contingency between environmental and economic orders of discourse. Also, it identifies the discursive strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivisation and mitigation or intensification and shows how tensions between discourses are smoothened. This analysis of EGD’s ideological hybridity also sheds light onto how EU institutions are (self)authorised to lead actions on environmental challenges on behalf of European citizens.

Background The aim of this paper is to reconsider the necessity for the green transition and the key preconditions for the implementation of a circular economy in Western Balkan countries. With the objective of the research in mind, the method of analysis and synthesis was applied to determine (1) regulatory and institutional prerequisites for the green transition; (2) the need for the Western Balkan countries to redefine the model of sustainable economic growth towards the green transition; (3) the development opportunities for recovery defined in the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans; and (4) the possibility of implementing the circular economy in the Western Balkans. Main text The main findings of the research indicate that: (1) the countries of the Western Balkan region, following the example of the EU, should define a national strategic approach to the green transition with an accompanying action plan and regulatory framework; (2) the biggest challenge of the green transition is the reform of the energy sector and the restructuring of the energy-intensive economy; (3) the countries have untapped potential in renewable energy sources and report the improvement of energy efficiency; (4) the circular economy can boost the green transition, because the countries of the region have a five-time lower value of resource productivity than the average of the EU, while the generation of waste (excluding major mineral wastes) per GDP unit is lower compared to the EU; (5) cross-sectoral governance should be more coordinated. Conclusions The green transition might be a development opportunity for the Western Balkans, which should enable sustainable economic growth as well as energy security and environmental protection. However, the implementation of the Green Agenda is not easy, because the region faces the problem of underdeveloped regulatory and institutional capacities that might provide not only the base for long-term planning but also financial resources for the efficient implementation of projects. In addition, it is essential to understand the principles of the Green Agenda and the interaction of all activities that should enable the achievement of defined goals.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;It is widely accepted that non-energy minerals underpin modern economies since they are essential for manufacturing and renewable energy supply. Europe shows an inevitably growing and accelerated consumption of mineral commodities. The critical question is whether supply to meet these demands is adequate. However, no one can answer this with any certainty because secure supply of mineral RM is a matter of knowing the resources and the ability to exploit them sustainably.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Europe&amp;amp;#8217;s strive to be become the world&amp;amp;#8217;s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 means implementing the &amp;amp;#8220;European Green Deal&amp;amp;#8221; by the EU Commission. Measures accompanied with an initial roadmap of key policies range from ambitiously cutting emissions, to investing in cutting-edge research and innovation, to preserving Europe&amp;amp;#8217;s natural environment.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;This green transition is a giant societal leap. However, of the clean and carbon-reducing technologies (e.g. wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, electric and hybrid vehicles), which allow energy production from renewable resources, use significant quantities of metals [e.g. REE, PGE, Nb, Li, Co, In, Ga, V, Te, Se] that are derived or refined from minerals, and of which Europe is strongly import dependent on. The high import dependence of strategic (SRM) and critical raw materials (CRM) has a serious impact on the sustainability of the EU manufacturing industry value chains and key enabling technologies (e.g. renewable energy industry, mobility sector and AI) and significant release of CO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt; emissions due to foreign ore transport. Effectively knowing Europe&amp;amp;#8217;s subsurface and the potential mineral supplies that can be used in these manufacturing industries can achieve this. We need to calculate the volumes of CRM and SRM metals (e.g. Co, Nb, V, Sb, PGE and REE) and minerals currently not extracted in Europe. We further need to understand how high-tech elements are mobilised, where they occur and why some are associated with specific major industrial metals. This means a renewed and robust focus on advanced exploration for new mineral deposits on land and sea.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;FRAME&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;(*)[1]&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt; addresses most of these concerns by focusing on at least four of the current objectives of the EU Commission: 1- CRM; 2- battery critical elements [graphite, Co, Li]; 3- The circular economy and; 4- the responsible sourcing of metals by combating conflict minerals.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;With focused work packages, FRAME aims to broadly deliver, 1- a new assessment of the SRM and CRM in Europe; 2- an innovative predictability of where the sourcing of some of these SRM and CRM may come from to reduce dependance on external supply sources, which in some specific metals such as Nb and Ta, fosters the sustainable and responsible supply and; 3- look at case specific sites for the reuse of mineral RM. Data will be made available through a structured data platform. Hence, FRAME is making a significant contribution to aid in the &amp;amp;#8220;European Green Deal&amp;amp;#8221;, activities such as the Battery Alliance and support legal actions like the new EU &amp;quot;conflict minerals&amp;quot; regulation effective from 1/01/2021.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;div&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;div&amp;gt; &amp;lt;p&amp;gt;[1] &amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;(*)&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt; This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement N&amp;amp;#186; 731166&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt; &amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt; &amp;lt;/div&amp;gt; &amp;lt;/div&amp;gt;

The Green Transition is the European growth strategy—supported by the European Green Deal (EGD, 2019)—that aims to overcome climate change and environmental degradation, foster climate neutrality by 2050, boost the economy through green technology, create sustainable industry and transport, and cut pollution. EU Member States are requested to implement actions that support the Green Transition, contributing to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. At the same time, the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) is the EU’s instrument to guarantee that the shift to a climate-neutral economy proceeds fairly and leaves no one behind. Turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities implies that the transition must be just and inclusive for all. Even though within the EU policy framework, Green Transition commonly comes together with the justice dimension, the spatial interdependence between these concepts requires more clarification. Therefore, this contribution questions the EU's Just Transition Strategy and addresses its important limitations: Overemphasising the distributive dimension of justice while undermining the procedural one, paying inadequate attention to the spatial dimension of justice, and considering justice as a secondary element of Green Transition. By analysing these constraints, the chapter provides a critical standpoint of the EU's Just Transition Strategy, highlighting significant gaps in its approach to justice. In addition, practical recommendations for policymakers are made to integrate spatial justice into the Green Transition. Some of these recommendations include assessing how environmental policies related to the Green Transition impact different geographies on a local scale; ensuring equitable geographical access to new infrastructures, such as urban green spaces, renewable energy sources, and green jobs across neighbourhood; promoting green job creation in disadvantaged areas; providing fair access to training programmes; empowering the least advantaged groups in decision-making; and, finally, promoting bottom-up decision-making processes that are inclusive, transparent, and focused on addressing structural inequities, rather than solely on immediate economic and environmental impacts.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Romania’s progress in the green transition compared to other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The main objective is to assess the extent to which the implementation of the European Green Deal has shaped the region’s environmental policies and economic strategies. The methodology is based on a quantitative analysis of key indicators that are crucial for evaluating green transition efforts, including greenhouse gas emissions, use of recycled materials, development of renewable energy sources, adoption of zero-carbon vehicles, and environmental protection expenditure as a share of GDP. By examining these indicators, the study highlights both the advancements and the persisting challenges faced by CEE countries in aligning with the EU’s ambitious sustainability goals. The findings reveal that while all CEE countries have made progress, the pace and areas of improvement vary significantly. In particular, Romania stands out as a strong performer in terms of accelerating the green transition, especially in renewable energy development and the adoption of zero-carbon vehicles. However, the analysis also underscores Romania’s slower progress in increasing the rate of recycled material usage, which remains an area requiring further attention. Overall, the research concludes that the European Green Deal has served as a pivotal catalyst for advancing environmental policies across the region, but the transition process remains uneven, necessitating more targeted strategies to address country-specific gaps and promote a balanced and sustainable growth trajectory.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the EU: From a sustainable energy transition to a green transition?

The European Green Deal (EGD), a complex policy program meant to address climate change and ensure a “just, fair and inclusive” transition into a more sustainable and greener Europe, was launched by the EU in 2019. It was clear from the very beginning that the opportunities and costs of the ambitious green transition would be very uneven geographically, not only within the EU but also among its regions and locations. Regions with higher environmental stress and/or less technological and economic capacities will inevitably be disadvantaged. The EGD requires large-scale public acceptance, which comes with democratic innovations and participative practices, which are less embedded in many regions. The former socialist bloc still struggles today with establishing decent levels of public participation, as well as with adopting and implementing democratic community principles in practice. The main aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, we intend to give an assessment of where Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries stand in the process of the green transition and what the major focus areas affecting them are, based on the existing academic literature. On the other hand, we intend to give a clear overview of the causes for and aspects of the weakness of civil society in the post-communist bloc and reasons why the adaptation of democratic innovations is lagging in this region. For this purpose, a systematic literature search and bibliometric analysis was performed based on articles indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Altogether, 172 articles published in the region were filtered and systematically analyzed according to the main themes of the papers related to the EGD. Research findings show that the interests of researchers in CEE countries largely differ from those in the mainstream academic discourse. Research topics, high on the agenda in Western countries, are hardly present in the academic discourse in CEE countries. On the other hand, issues like energy efficiency, urbanization’s impacts on green growth and renewable energy development, and innovations towards a circular economy dominate the research agenda. This region started the green transition process with major handicaps compared to the West, connected to path dependency and the legacy of socialist structures. The paper analyses the bibliometric aspects of articles published on these topics and highlights the highly sectoral and country-focused approaches taken with regard to the EGD. In our paper, we highlight the importance of the region on a geographic scale, which goes beyond the initial framework and offers a different approach to addressing the issue. The paper proves that the presence of EGD-related participation processes is significantly lacking in academic literature in the CEE region. However, the most important finding of our paper is the identification of an academic gap regarding democratic innovations and deliberation, as well as regarding active involvement and participation of people in EGD-related programs. This gives an even more important base for the assessment of the region in terms of the EGD, which faces growing populism and advancing authoritarian regimes, such that public participation and citizen control have become vitally important for the implementation of the green transition.

The European Green Deal (EGD) is the cornerstone of a strategic package (EGD Strategic Framework; EGDSF), which aims to make the EU a climate-neutral and competitive economy by 2050. The green transition planned by the EGD has been affected by relevant external shocks, which have highlighted Europe’s vulnerabilities in key strategic sectors. In this context, EU strategic autonomy (SA) has increasingly become a recurring element of the EGDSF. This article aims to provide a better understanding of the role of SA within the EGDSF and investigate whether it supports the EGD’s environmental ambitions. Based on an in-depth qualitative analysis of the EGDSF, it examines the specific purposes that, via SA, the EU wants to achieve and provides a categorisation of the related implementation measures. It emerges that SA objectives embedded into the EGDSF have been shaped in support of EGD goals but that some trade-offs may arise depending on the implementation measures selected to meet the former. In particular, current measures that promote self-sufficiency and the extension of environmental requirements to foreign businesses/products accessing the EU market raise some environmental, economic, and social concerns, which can be partly addressed through a stronger and more comprehensive EGD external dimension.

Since the 18th century, the industrial revolution has brought tremendous success in food production, enabling the feeding of more than 8 billion people. However, the success comes with consequences – what we call the Darwinian boomerang of industrialization. The consequences include accelerated global warming, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, overexploitation of natural resources, desertification, eutrophication, loss of biodiversity, and accumulation of alarmingly large amounts of industrial waste including plastics and resilient chemicals. Addressing these challenges and meeting the growing demand for sustainable and nutritious food necessitates a paradigm shift, known as the green food transition, supported by multidisciplinary foodomics research. This review discusses key enablers of the rapidly emerging green food transition, including a shift toward plant-based diets, gene editing, smart agriculture, cellular agriculture, gentle food processing, and circular economy models. The role of foodomics within each enabler is highlighted, providing examples of how multidisciplinary foodomics research can prevent a Darwinian boomerang characterized by malnutrition, compromised nutritional quality, emergence of novel foodborne diseases, and increased food intolerances. Green food transition initiatives are essential for achieving future food security and environmental sustainability, but nutritional concerns persist. Only a minor fraction of current research integrates foodomics , despite its critical role in ensuring food safety and nutritional adequacy. Most discoveries of unforeseen harmful compounds come from inductive studies on industrial food processing or dietary interventions. Systematic foodomics assessments of emerging sustainable food systems are urgently required to evaluate both short- and long-term human health impacts. • Industrial revolution and food production practices cause uncontrolled resource exploitation and environmental harm. • An unsustainable food supply chain necessitates the green food transition to secure food for increasing global population. • Interdisciplinary data-driven research is required to avoid a new Darwinian boomerang from the green food transition. • Foodomics research is essential to uncover the dark foodome and better understand the impact of new foods on human health.