‘Food Systems Breaching Planetary Boundaries,’ EAT-Lancet 2025 Report

Major Finding:

• The 2025 EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy, Sustainable and Just Food Systems has warned that global food systems are now the largest contributors to the breaching of planetary boundaries, accounting for five of the seven boundaries already transgressed.
• The Commission called for placing justice at the core of all food system transformations to ensure equitable, sustainable, and healthy outcomes.

About the EAT-Lancet Commission:

• It is a global group of scientists working to develop and promote the Planetary Health Diet (PHD) — a framework for healthy, sustainable, and equitable diets.
• The PHD emphasises a plant-rich diet, with about 75% composed of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, and whole grains.

Understanding Planetary Boundaries:

• The planetary boundaries framework, first proposed in 2009 by Johan Rockström and 27 other leading scientists, defines limits to human-induced environmental change within which Earth can remain stable and self-regulating.
• In 2023, scientists quantified nine critical Earth-system processes that maintain a stable and resilient planet.

The Nine Planetary Boundaries:

1. Climate change
2. Ocean acidification
3. Stratospheric ozone depletion
4. Biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus cycles)
5. Global freshwater use
6. Land system change
7. Erosion of biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss)
8. Chemical pollution (novel entities)
9. Atmospheric aerosol loading

Food Systems and Environmental Stress:

• Food systems are responsible for 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Transforming these systems could cut emissions by 50%, offering one of the most effective routes to achieving climate goals.
• The Commission stresses that five of the breached boundaries—including climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and land-system change—are directly linked to food production and consumption.

Call for a Justice-Centred Transformation:

• The report underscores that the wealthiest 30% of the global population drive 70% of food-related environmental impacts.
• It calls for embedding social and economic justice in food system policies—ensuring that low-income and vulnerable populations are not left behind in the global shift toward sustainability.

Significance:

• The EAT-Lancet 2025 report reframes the food crisis as not only an environmental challenge, but also a justice and equity imperative.
• Transforming food systems through the Planetary Health Diet could help restore Earth’s stability while ensuring nutrition, fairness, and resilience for all.

Source: TH