The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review.

Lukasz Aleksandrowicz,Pete Smith,Edward J M Joy,Andy Haines,Rosemary Green,Andrea S Wiley

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165797

Lukasz Aleksandrowicz, Pete Smith + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0165797

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Abstract

Food production is a major driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water and land use, and dietary risk factors are contributors to non-communicable diseases. Shifts in dietary patterns can therefore potentially provide benefits for both the environment and health. However, there is uncertainty about the magnitude of these impacts, and the dietary changes necessary to achieve them. We systematically review the evidence on changes in GHG emissions, land use, and water use, from shifting current dietary intakes to environmentally sustainable dietary patterns. We find 14 common sustainable dietary patterns across reviewed studies, with reductions as high as 70–80% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use (with medians of about 20–30% for these indicators across all studies) possible by adopting sustainable dietary patterns. Reductions in environmental footprints were generally proportional to the magnitude of animal-based food restriction. Dietary shifts also yielded modest benefits in all-cause mortality risk. Our review reveals that environmental and health benefits are possible by shifting current Western diets to a variety of more sustainable dietary patterns.

Highlights

There is an urgent need to curb the degradation of natural resources and to limit global warming to less than 2°C, while providing a nutritious diet to a growing and changing world population [1, 2]
We systematically review the evidence of the impacts of adopting sustainable diets on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, agricultural land requirement, and water use, and compare the environmental and health effects between various types of sustainable dietary patterns
The environmental impacts we considered were GHG emissions, land use and water use

Summary

Introduction

There is an urgent need to curb the degradation of natural resources and to limit global warming to less than 2°C, while providing a nutritious diet to a growing and changing world population [1, 2]. Agriculture is responsible for up to 30% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, about 70% of freshwater use, and occupies more than one-third of all potentially cultivatable land [2, 3], with animal-based foods being major contributors to these environmental changes [4]. These impacts present challenges for improving global health and development, by exacerbating climate change, driving biodiversity loss and soil degradation, and increasing freshwater scarcity [2, 5]. Environmental and Health Impacts of Dietary Change analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report

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