Source: YouTube
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECIwBVJ8cZQ
Date: 21/06/2016
Event: Stordalen: food "at the heart of the environmental catastrophe facing the planet"
Credit: EAT Foundation
People:
[Co-founder and President of EAT Foundation, Dr. Gunhild A. Stordalen speaking at EAT Stockholm Food Forum, June 2016.]
Gunhild Stordalen: Over the next 10 minutes, the world will welcome 2,500 new citizens. Almost 300 - over 10% - will not have enough food for a healthy life. Almost 1,000 - a staggering 40% - are expected to grow up to be overweight, and guess what - guess what will be the biggest killer? Not tobacco, not alcohol, but food. It's food that is the leading cause of our global health crisis and it's food that is at the heart of the environmental catastrophe facing the planet. It's food that is responsible for almost a third of all greenhouse gas emissions and it's food that is the single most important cause of the loss of biodiversity.
And as our population grows faster by the minute, the stakes grow even higher and yet - yet this is the only global forum where we can piece this jigsaw together. We have a COP for climate, the world meets to discuss and take action for the environment and for health and the economy and migration but all separately. All these issues are driven by our eating habits and not fixing our food system is the fast track to failure on almost all of the new Sustainable Development Goals - or to be more positive, changing what's on the world's plates and how it got there will help tackle almost all of today's major collective challenges.
But still last year in Paris and in New York food was only on the plates not on the agenda - here, food is the agenda. I am here against the advice of my doctors because I believe that this is the most important issue facing the planet and you - you are here to help change the lives of more than 9 billion humans and because you have already started. You are the academic pioneers, political leaders, super successful entrepreneurs, civil society game-changers and visionary chefs. Very impressive but sorry guys, you alone are not enough, will never be enough - no single government, business organisation or individual can change the way the world eats, alone. As clichéd as it is, we have to work together. We don't need a top-down solution, we can't wait for bottom-up answers. We need - all the world needs - round-table solutions and, my friends, EAT is that table.
Since we met last year EAT has been transformed - more powerful, more professional, more robust and - not to forget - more impactful. A table that is built to last, built to create a new agenda and, as you will learn in more detail over the next two days, EAT is now focusing on five different themes, the big five C's. First, Commissions - experts from different fields of science to co-create solutions and synergies, facts on where we are and where we should be, and then policies to get us there. C for Cities - most of those 2,500 newborns will live out their lives in urban areas. Progressive mayors have already taken action on climate and energy and transport and now in partnership with EAT, they are now moving on to kitchens, to restaurants and the entire urban food value chain.
Companies - companies, as you all know, were crucial in Paris and now, in partnership with EAT, they will invest to create a triple return from people, planet and profit and important long-term sustainability for their shareholders, business for tomorrow and today. Fourth, a platform of chefs to really re-write the world menus and finally, our fifth C - but a very important one - Consumers. Here we will be sharing insights on how to inform, engage, nudge and change their eating habits.
These five C's I will really bring to the table but at the end of the day it's just a pile of paperwork without you. So first, welcome to all the scientists and academics. You possess the knowledge, the knowledge that is - or at least should be - the foundation of all good decision-making. However, as you know, scientific success is often built on the ability to deep-dive into tiny pixels to unlock the answers for a single crucial piece of a puzzle. Now we ask you to challenge yourselves and to look beyond the micro and leverage the macro connections. The world has a lot of geniuses and I recognise quite a few here today. What we need now, first and foremost, are more partners, more research fellows.
Next, the politicians, welcome to you - yes, you're elected on a short-term basis so I can't or won't blame you for the past, but too often your predecessors have been scared off for fear of losing the votes of junk-food lovers or the support of companies with narrow outlooks. You know, those votes have a cost, a cost for human health, for the environment, so now you must find the courage to lead, to take your voters where they need to go and make the industry help them get there, act for all generations, including your own.
And then to all the business leaders who have joined us today, welcome to the EAT table - you are the industry front-runners, you have understood that sugar-coated home-alone party is nearly over, at least less and less appealing to your customers, investors and employees but many still make a market, products in ways that are bad for the environment, bad for the consumers, bad for farmers or farmworkers or simply not good for anything but short-term profits. So now it's time to go beyond interesting recipes and start to build new truly sustainable business models, which many of you already are working on.
Last but not least, welcome to all chefs - you are, you are the rock stars of the food world and you used to look like Meat Loaf but now you are now all Aviciis and you communicate with consumers every day, so start using that influence to make us crave the right choices and to set us free from the history of how we used to eat, and to teach us what a healthy sustainable future could taste like.
It's a good old quote from at least mostly bad old men - together, you make up not only a "coalition of the of the willing" but a coalition of the brave, bold and forward-thinking, a coalition that the world needs now needs now more than ever. I hope you all have realised that EAT is not a crash course on global crisis nor is it a two day cocktail party and you are not here to lean back, watch fancy PowerPoint slides and exchange business cards. We are not going to tell you exactly what to do, who to talk to or what session to attend - in fact, we expect you to bring your own ideas to our table and hopefully to take home a full doggy bag of new even bigger ideas, partnerships and great plans.
In this room, we are 500 leaders from all parts of the global food system, a global food system that will shape the lives of those 2,500 new citizens. Working together we can, we must, we will change that system so that our planet can prosper and with it they - the 2,500 citizens - can prosper too, so - no time to lose, let's get to work. Thank you. [Audience applause].