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Guiding sustainable transformations in food systems

Quantifying progress towards sustainability goals in food systems requires a universal, threshold-based Food Sustainability Index. Integrating artificial intelligence, remote sensing and empirical observations with system dynamics modelling can help guide sustainable transformations.

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Fig. 1: An integrated framework to measure food system sustainability.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Abbas Seifi for their support. The work was completed with funding support from NSERC-Discovery (RGPIN-2020-05017) funded to A.B., NSERC-SSHRC-AAFC Alliance Preparatory Grants (ALLRP) funded to T.D., A.B. and A.D., and CIHR-NSERC-SSHRC-Healthy Cities Research Initiative (HCRI) funded to L.D. and T.D.

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A.B., I.M., T.D., and B.T. researched the article. A.B., I.M., T.D., L.D., and K.P. contributed to discussions. A.B., I.M., and T.D. wrote the article. All authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Asim Biswas.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Academic Impact: https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/sustainability

System dynamics modelling: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/102741

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Biswas, A., Maddocks, I., Dhar, T. et al. Guiding sustainable transformations in food systems. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 607–608 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00588-0

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