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Integrating degrowth and efficiency perspectives enables an emission-neutral food system by 2100

Nature Food volume 3, pages 341–348 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Degrowth proponents advocate reducing ecologically destructive forms of production and resource throughput in wealthy economies to achieve environmental goals, while transforming production to focus on human well-being. Here we present a quantitative model to test degrowth principles in the food and land system. Our results confirm that reducing and redistributing income alone, within current development paradigms, leads to limited greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation from agriculture and land-use change, as the nutrition transition towards unsustainable diets already occurs at relatively low income levels. Instead, we show that a structural, qualitative food system transformation can achieve a steady-state food system economy that is net GHG-neutral by 2100 while improving nutritional outcomes. This sustainable transformation reduces material throughput via a convergence towards a needs-based food system, is enabled by a more equitable income distribution and includes efficient resource allocation through the pricing of GHG emissions as a complementary strategy. It thereby integrates degrowth and efficiency perspectives.

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Fig. 1: Development of emissions, material throughput and economic activity for six scenarios.

Data availability

Generated data and replication scripts have been archived at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5543427

Code availability

MAgPIE is an open-source model available at: https://github.com/magpiemodel/magpie. The model documentation for the exact version of MAgPIE used in this study (v.4.3.4) can be found at https://rse.pik-potsdam.de/doc/magpie/4.3.4/.

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Acknowledgements

D.M.-C.C. and F.B. are supported by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). B.L.B. has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement numbers 776479 (COACCH), 689150 (SIM4NEXUS) and 821010 (CASCADES) and from the Norwegian Research Council (Greenplantfoods). E.J.M.B. acknowledges support from FABLE 2.0 grant agreement number 94120, which is funded by FOLU grant agreement number 94120. F.B. and F.G. receive funding from the Food System Economics Commission, which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (2020FOD008) and the Wellcome Trust (221362/Z/20/Z). SHAPE is part of AXIS, an ERA-NET initiated by JPI Climate, and funded by FORMAS (Sweden), FFG/BMWFW (Austria), DLR/BMBF (Germany, grant number 01LS19XXY), NWO (Netherlands) and RCN (Norway) with co-funding by the European Union (grant number 776608). Funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the context of the project ‘FOCUS—food security and sustained coastal livelihoods through linking land and ocean’ (031B0787B) is gratefully acknowledged. Further support is provided by the Global Commons Stewardship (GCS) project, funded by the University of Tokyo.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, David Meng-Chuen Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, David Meng-Chuen Chen, Isabelle Weindl, Bjoern Soergel, Felicitas Beier, Edna J. Molina Bacca, Franziska Gaupp, Alexander Popp & Hermann Lotze-Campen

  2. World Vegetable Center, Tainan, Taiwan

    Benjamin Leon Bodirsky

  3. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    David Meng-Chuen Chen, Felicitas Beier & Edna J. Molina Bacca

  4. EAT, Oslo, Norway

    Franziska Gaupp

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Contributions

B.L.B. and D.M.-C.C. designed the study and drafted the manuscript. B.L.B., D.M.-C.C., I.W., E.J.M.B. and H.L.-C. contributed to core model development. D.M.-C.C. undertook the modelling and analysis. All authors contributed to discussing the results and writing the paper.

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Correspondence to David Meng-Chuen Chen.

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Nature Food thanks Manfred Lenzen and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Text 1 and 2, Table 1 and Figs. 1–4.

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Detailed model outputs and indicators across scenarios and years.

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Bodirsky, B.L., Chen, D.MC., Weindl, I. et al. Integrating degrowth and efficiency perspectives enables an emission-neutral food system by 2100. Nat Food 3, 341–348 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00500-3

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