The EAT–Lancet Commission has released its 2025 report on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems, updating its landmark 2019 findings on how humanity can achieve nutritious diets for all while staying within safe and just planetary boundaries.
Human Level’s Take:
Food systems are the leading cause of five of the six breached planetary boundaries, driving climate change, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and nearly all nitrogen and phosphorus pollution
The use of novel entities in food production, such as plastics and pesticides, continues to pose major environmental and health risks, while unsustainable land conversion and deforestation remain key drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change
Nearly half of the global population falls below the social foundations needed to meet human rights related to food systems (access to healthy diets, safe environments, and decent work), with low-income and marginalised groups most affected
The richest 30% of the global population are responsible for over 70% of food-related environmental pressures, underscoring stark inequalities in who benefits from and who bears the costs of current food systems
The updated planetary health diet - predominantly plant-based with moderate animal-sourced foods - could halve the food sector’s greenhouse gas emissions and prevent up to 15 million deaths annually
A just transformation of global food systems depends on coordinated, cross-sectoral coalitions—bringing together the private sector, public institutions, and civil society—to identify action bundles, develop national and regional roadmaps, mobilise finance, and implement joint plans
These efforts must align with broader sustainability and health frameworks, including the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and national dietary guidelines, to ensure coherence and accountability in achieving climate and human rights goals
Some key takeaways:
Food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions: Food systems are driving the transgression of five of the six breached boundaries, including exerting a notable impact on the transgressed climate boundary and on the ocean acidification boundary. They also account for the near totality of nitrogen and phosphorus boundary transgression, emphasising the improvements needed in nutrient management, efficient nutrient redistribution, and circular nutrient systems. In addition, the huge use of novel entities in food production, processing and packaging e.g., plastics and pesticides, remain a major concern. Furthermore, unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change change, highlighting a need for zero conversion of all remaining intact ecosystems. Therefore, a safe solution to the climate and biodiversity crises is impossible without a global food systems transformation. Even if a global energy transition away from fossil fuels occurs, food systems will cause the world to breach the Paris Climate Agreement of limiting global mean surface temperature to 1.5°C.
Human rights and food systems: The human rights related to food systems (i.e., the rights to food, a healthy environment, and decent work) are not being met, with analyses demonstrating inequities in access to healthy diets, decent work conditions, and healthy environments, which are disproportionately impacting marginalised groups in low-income regions. Nearly half of the world’s population falls below the social foundations - i.e., the minimum conditions that enable people’s human rights to be met such as healthy and affordable diets, healthy food environments, a safe climate, a non-toxic environment, living wages, and meaningful representation - for the human rights related to food systems (i.e., the rights to food, a healthy environment, and decent work) to be met. At the same time, responsibility for planetary boundary transgressions from food systems is not equal: the diets of the richest 30% of the global population contribute to more than 70% of the environmental pressures from food systems - highlighting the large inequalities in the distribution of both benefits and burdens of current food systems.
Shifting diets and its impacts on people and planet: Since the 2019 edition of the report, the EAT- Lancet Commission has updated the planetary health diet, demonstrating it could halve the food sector’s greenhouse gas emissions and prevent millions of deaths annually. The planetary health diet emphasises a balanced diet that is predominantly plant-based, with moderate inclusion of animal-sourced foods and minimal consumption of added sugars, saturated fats, and salt. The report notes that the consideration of cultural contexts and the promotion of culturally appropriate and sustainable dietary traditions are important to the successful implementation of the planetary health diet. Currently, all national diets deviate substantially from the planetary health diet, but a shift to this diet could prevent approximately 15 million deaths per year (27% of total deaths worldwide), reduce the rates of many specific non-communicable diseases and promote healthy longevity. The report emphasises that a just transformation of the food system requires cross-sectoral coalitions - including the private sector, public institutions and civil society. It also requires identifying bundles of actions, developing national and regional roadmaps for implementation, unlocking finance for the transformation, and rapidly putting joint plans into action. These efforts should closely align with other sustainability and health initiatives (e.g., the Paris Agreement, Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and nation-specific food-based dietary guidelines).
