Food for Thought

NYC Climate Update #1 - by Nigel Lake

So, NYC Climate Week is here once again – bringing with it the annual irony of a deluge of huge black 4WDs slurping fossil fuels as they sit in endless traffic jams (the smart folk travel by foot, bicycle and subway).

But climate change is a slow burn, so to speak. It is an enormous challenge to many nations – and once-in-a-lifetime disasters exacerbated by climate change are reported almost daily – but the real pain lies a decade or two in the future. Signifiacnt progress is being made, in some countries, in buildling out renewable energy generation. And those with strong renewable resources, such as Australia, are beginning to realise that a near-100% renewable energy grid might be possible with surprisingly little over-building of generation with the right (and indeed surprisingly small) investment in battery storage. For more, see Giles Parkinson’s piece in RenewEconomy.

It thus seemed especially appropriate to start climate week with a session focused on food and agricultural supply chains hosted by Deloitte. Food/agriculture is an important element not only of the climate change story, but also in relation to the more immediate threats of ecological degradation.? As we’ve learned from the energy and food crises sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy, food, climate change and environmental sustainability are inextricably intertwined, and failings in the food supply chain can have very substantial and immediate impact on very large numbers of people.

For many, this is a new set of issues. Last year, for the first time, many people in the business and finance world heard about ‘the other COP’ – COP 15 in Montreal (COP 16 has been delated to 2024). As an aside, the United States is the only country not to have ratified the underlying Convention on Biological Diversity, as this requires ratification by two thirds of the Senate.

A year on, the focus on food systems is growing rapidly. On Monday, I joined: “Feeding The Future: A Sustainable Food Revolution” at Goals House. As anyone who understands the agricultural sector will know, it is hard to drive change in the supply chains that grow food and deliver it to our fridges. Farming is highly fragmented in many countries, and supply chains are both messy and complicated. Whilst there are some who understand how to implement regenerative farming practices successfully, there are many for whom this feels like a large mountain to climb, both operationally and financially.

One way to cut through these barriers is to implement measures at a city level that create both visibility of what can be done successfully and demand for plant-based foods and the like. New York City has been a leading light in this regard, setting bold targets to reduce the environmental intensity of food purchased by the city significantly in the space of a few years. As one example, the default food option in the hospital system is now vegan, and uptake has been high (meat options are still freely available).? The city’s Good Food Purchasing program provides a simple framework that large organisations can adopt themselves to achieve similar end objectives (more here: https://www.nyc.gov/site/foodpolicy/good-food-purchasing/good-food-purchasing.page). And importantly, this isn't just focused on quantity of foods consumed - there's a big focus on quality too. Bravo Kate MacKenzie , Rachel Atcheson and colleagues!

Meanwhile, large investors are beginning to build portfolios focused on sustainable agriculture and food production. These investment pools remain tiny compared to ongoing investmentinto renewable energy infrastructure, but they are growing steadily. Looking ahead, there is a huge opportunity emerging for infrastructure investors - for more on this, see my 2022 paper on 'eco-infrastructure'.

Of course much more is needed – to help consumers make better choices as to what they eat, to improve supply chains (and reduce waste), to help farmers adopt regenerative practices and to invest in the eco-infrastructure required to support evolution of each country’s farming system. More to follow on this shortly.