A new article co-authored by BrightSpace researchers has been published in The Lancet Planetary Health, offering important insights into how different policy pathways could shift global diets toward healthier and more sustainable patterns — and what these shifts mean for the environment, affordability, and equity.
The study, “Exploring environmental and distributional impacts of different transition pathways for healthier and sustainable diets: an economic modelling study,” by Marijke Kuiper, Thijs de Lange, Willem-Jan van Zeist, and Hans van Meijl, uses the global MAGNET economic model to examine realistic policy-driven transitions away from business-as-usual increases in meat consumption between now and 2050.
Key Findings
The research shows that while a direct, exogenously modelled shift to the EAT–Lancet (EL) diet has been widely analysed, such a shift does not provide practical guidance on how real diets could change. Instead, the authors model a policy bundle involving:
- Nudges and information campaigns,
- Fiscal reforms, and
- Emission-based taxes and subsidies.
Their analysis reveals that:
- The policy bundle improves diets but cannot fully reach EL dietary recommendations — particularly for red meat reduction and increased intake of fruits, vegetables, pulses, and nuts.
- Price incentives (e.g., taxes on high-emission foods, subsidies for healthier foods) are often more effective than information-based nudges alone, especially in low-income regions.
- The policy bundle reduces agricultural GHG emissions by 4 Gt CO₂e, slightly more than an exogenous EL diet shift.
- Unlike an exogenous EL diet — which increases costs for consumers — the policy bundle improves affordability for many households by lowering the cost of encouraged foods.
- Distributional impacts differ sharply between scenarios, with the policy bundle causing fewer negative effects on wages and workforce affordability than an imposed global dietary shift.
Implications for Policy and Food Systems
The study underscores the importance of policy design: the choice of instruments strongly shapes not only dietary outcomes but also environmental impacts, agricultural land use, and social equity. The authors highlight opportunities for strengthening policy packages—such as productivity improvements or reductions in food loss and waste—to moderate price pressures and enhance equitable outcomes.
This work directly supports BrightSpace’s mission to explore realistic and just pathways toward climate-neutral and sustainable food systems.
Publication Details
Citation:
Kuiper M., de Lange T., van Zeist W-J., van Meijl H. Exploring environmental and distributional impacts of different transition pathways for healthier and sustainable diets: an economic modelling study. The Lancet Planetary Health (2025), Volume 9, Issue 10, Article 101327.
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101327
Read the article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519625002050
Funding
The study received support from the Atkinson Center for Sustainability (Cornell University), Wageningen University & Research, the CGIAR SHiFT Initiative, and the EU Horizon Europe BrightSpace and ForestNavigator projects.
Open Access
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), enabling unrestricted access, sharing, and reuse with proper attribution.
👉 Access the full study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102955
Also available at the BrightSpace Zenodo Community page: https://zenodo.org/communities/brightspace-eu-project/
