New Report: Valuing the Impact of Food: Towards practical and comparable monetary valuation of food system impacts

Valuing the Impact of Food: Towards practical and comparable monetary valuation of food system impacts

FoodSIVI reports

Date posted: 12 June 2020

What is the cost of the food we eat? What is the value of the sustainable products and practices in the food sector? How do we balance the short-term and private value that food provides with the longer-term and externalised costs taking their toll on nature, the communities of workers producing and processing food, human health, and more?

This report from the Food System Impact Valuation Initiative (FoodSIVI) examines food impact costing, and whether the way that carbon is costed in terms of social and abatement costs of carbon footprints can be adjusted to estimate the longer-term and externalised costs of food production, processing and consumption. It argues that a footprint protocol solidifying what to measure and how to track footprint reduction should be developed. It finds unavoidable ethical choices and order of magnitude uncertainties inherent in both social and abatement costing, recommending that a consortium of intergovernmental and institutional actors and experts in collaboration with the food sector process should compile, set and update shadow prices associated to food footprints.