Giving Compass' Take:

• With more and more of the global population living in urban areas, Impact Hub lays out examples of sustainable food solutions to mitigate climate impact.

• The effects of food systems can slide under the radar in conservation efforts. What can donors do to draw attention to the need for more sustainable food solutions?

• Listen to a podcast about one way to create more sustainable food solutions.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in their ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020’ report, sound the alarm loud and clear about the growing impact of what we eat.

According to the report, the world’s food system makes up a third of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions, establishing it as one of the key drivers of rising global temperatures and the consequent climate crisis. Meanwhile, the individual costs to our own health of what we eat will add up to 1.3 trillion USD by 2030.

It is clear that without rapid innovation on a global scale, what we eat in our cities and how we produce it poses an existential challenge.

This year saw the launch of Feeding the City Accelerate in the UK, which aims to support more established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) working in the realm of sustainable food to scale. Among those selected for the first program is Sutton Community Farm, whose agro-ecological and organic farm in South London provides both restaurants and individuals with healthy, fresh vegetable boxes with a low carbon footprint.

But Feeding the City is now expanding not just within the UK, but on mainland Europe too. Impact Hub Berlin announced the first Feeding the City teams to be selected in Germany earlier this month. One of them is SuperCoop, a member-owned supermarket cooperative in Berlin, whose business model ensures the protection of both producers and the planet. The benefits of a more localized supply chain and workforce have been brought to the forefront in recent months, with industrial food production facilities coming under fire for driving the spread of the pandemic through poor working conditions.

Read the full article about sustainable food solutions at Impact Hub Network.