The elephant in the room is really a cow:using consumption corridors to define sustainable meat consumption in the European Union

Implementing the European Green Deal requires a consistent food systems’ policy that involves not only targeting the supply side but also conducting extensive changes in diets at the consumer level. Reducing meat consumption is an obvious strategy to put the European food system on track to meet the Green Deal’s goals. This cannot be achieved by focusing solely on consumer choice and individual responsibility. Stronger governance is required to reduce the scale of meat consumption to sustainable levels. Such governance needs to be informed by a holistic definition of “sustainable meat consumption”, designed to ensure that important sustainability priorities are not neglected, and to account for all emissions associated with EU consumption, regardless of where production takes place. This article presents a conceptual framework to define “sustainable meat consumption” based on the concept of consumption corridors (CCs). A CC is the space between a minimum (the floor) and maximum (the ceiling) consumption level, which allows everybody to satisfy their needs without compromising others’ ability to meet their own. Embedded in a powerful set of principles (recognizing universal needs; tackling both over and under-consumption; framing food as a common good; promoting public participation; and addressing environmental justice and planetary sustainability), CCs are attuned to the Green Deal’s ambition to “leave no one behind”, in the EU and beyond. CCs provide a demand-side solution encompassing a more equitable alternative to discuss what is actually a “fair share” of the world’s limited resources when it comes to meat consumption.</p

De l'usage au prendre soin: la pleine conscience peut-elle favoriser un comportement plus éthique à l'égard des animaux ?

peer reviewedPlacing animals at the bottom of the pyramid and using them to satisfy human requirements is such an old and rooted behaviour that no amount of intellectual reasoning, empirical evidence or catastrophic scenario seems to be persuasive enough to induce real change. Apart from the works of Joanna Macy (the Work That Reconnects) or Mathieu Ricard's Plea for the Animals (2016), Buddhist and/or mindfulness scholars rarely address the issue of the animal condition, even though this has become a great and pressing concern. This paper claims that the current flourishing of mindfulness - per se and linked to all realms of human life (health, leadership, education, etc.) – can and should be used to generate the understanding needed to promote alternative ways to relate to (production) animals. The central argument is that mindfulness - understood as both the Buddhadharma and the contemporary practices rooted in those teachings - is a relevant means to induce a more ethical behaviour towards animals. By focusing on production animals, the paper intends to capture more closely the case of those who are most directly exposed to human endeavours. It starts by exploring the confluences between three core Buddhist concepts and the field of animal ethics. It argues that i) presence (understood as introspective awareness and attention); ii) interconnectedness or non-duality/non separation; and iii) compassion are three basic understandings/qualities on which basis one can build a more caring relation to animals. It then describes the process and results of the Focus (semi-structured) interviews conducted amongst fifteen individuals enrolled in a training to become mindfulness teachers – and thus reputed to have consistent meditation practice and acceptable understanding of the Buddhist teachings. Based on both, the theoretical considerations and the analysis s of the interviews, the paper concludes by shedding some light on the process through which mindfulness (and, in particular, the cultivation of the three above mentioned qualities) is conducive to positive changes in our behaviour towards animals

The elephant in the room is really a cow: using consumption corridors to define sustainable meat consumption in the European Union

International audienceImplementing the European Green Deal requires a consistent food systems’ policy that involves not only targeting the supply side but also conducting extensive changes in diets at the consumer level. Reducing meat consumption is an obvious strategy to put the European food system on track to meet the Green Deal’s goals. This cannot be achieved by focusing solely on consumer choice and individual responsibility. Stronger governance is required to reduce the scale of meat consumption to sustainable levels. Such governance needs to be informed by a holistic definition of “sustainable meat consumption”, designed to ensure that important sustainability priorities are not neglected, and to account for all emissions associated with EU consumption, regardless of where production takes place. This article presents a conceptual framework to define “sustainable meat consumption” based on the concept of consumption corridors (CCs). A CC is the space between a minimum (the floor) and maximum (the ceiling) consumption level, which allows everybody to satisfy their needs without compromising others’ ability to meet their own. Embedded in a powerful set of principles (recognizing universal needs; tackling both over and under-consumption; framing food as a common good; promoting public participation; and addressing environmental justice and planetary sustainability), CCs are attuned to the Green Deal’s ambition to “leave no one behind”, in the EU and beyond. CCs provide a demand-side solution encompassing a more equitable alternative to discuss what is actually a “fair share” of the world’s limited resources when it comes to meat consumption

Holistic approaches to assess the sustainability of food systems in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review

International audienceFood systems and their sustainability have been extensively studied in high-income countries (HICs), yet less so in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), despite their importance for global food security. In this study, we conducted a systematic scoping review to describe the extent, range, and nature of peer-reviewed literature assessing the sustainability performance of food systems in LMICs. The review revealed a recent and heterogeneous literature. From this diversity, 3 archetypes of epistemological approaches emerged, classified by their purpose: observational , modeling , and transformative . All 3 approaches apply existing or tailored methods to specifically study food systems, and their objectives are to observe, model, or transform different parts of the food systems towards sustainability. Gaps in the literature include inconsistent definitions of food systems and frameworks and understudied drivers of food systems sustainability. Therefore, the development of a comprehensive and systematic inventory of frameworks and their sustainability is crucial to determine the most suitable interdisciplinary methodologies for specific contexts and generate actionable knowledge for food systems transformation