The ecological footprint of food production, trade, processing, transport, and consumption is expanding rapidly. There is also a growing realization that many agrochemicals used in food production, protection and processing are harmful to human health. In addition, issues such as animal welfare, migrant labor, and inequity in food and farming systems are becoming increasingly recognized in world news. Despite global efforts to produce more food to meet the nutritional demands of all humans, more than 800 million go hungry every day, and over 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Meanwhile, food production and distribution are subject to the effects of ongoing global crises such as climate change, pandemics, and war.

In short, both the impacts of the global food system and the threats it faces are growing at a fast and furious rate. However, to date, the industry response toward resolving these environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has been neither fast nor sufficient.

Two major issues confront the agriculture and food sector. First, agriculture and food are part of global trade. Agriculture annually adds USD 3.7 trillion in value to the global economy. Food has become one of the world’s leading tradable commodities, like minerals, timber, or metal. But in trading food as a commodity, the food industry loses sight of the connections between food, the natural environment, culture, diets, and people. For example, a few food types, such as grains, oilseeds, sugar, corn, and coffee, are valued disproportionately for global trade.

The second issue is that when farmers are part of such a globally interconnected system, they become some of the most vulnerable participants in the food value chain, left wide open to risks of disruption such as extreme weather events, political conflicts, and health crises. In response to these pressures, farmers tend to produce more by increasing efficiency and reducing risks. As a result, they may end up growing a narrower range of crops, or buying more land (if feasible) in order to operate more economically. Such practices push small-scale farmers out of business, and unsustainable farming practices using large amounts of agrochemicals and energy become a norm. Causing spikes in both food insecurity levels and greenhouse gas emissions, these trends have massive negative social and environmental impacts.

Professor Harpinder Sandhu

To address these issues, we need to transform food systems to become more resilient and valuable for both people and nature. Such a transformation requires us to understand the full-scale impacts and dependencies of current food systems, zooming in to investigate the way food is produced, and zooming out to examine the broader impacts of food trade, processing, distribution and consumption on planetary and human health.

We can accomplish this by using a True Cost Accounting (TCA) approach known as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood). TEEBAgriFood is a comprehensive and foundational TCA framework to measure all impacts and benefits in terms of the four types of capital –natural (biodiversity, ecosystems, land, soil, air, water, etc.), social (social networks, norms, rules, etc.), human (skills, health, etc.) and produced  (finance, production, etc.). This approach accounts for a variety of ESG indicators and expresses the measurements in terms of monetary value, which can then be reflected in profit and loss statements of farm accounts, agribusiness accounts, and national accounts. Applying the TEEBAgriFood framework can improve understanding of the negative impacts of food systems, as well as the benefits, and facilitate development of policies and practices to reduce harm and establish more resilient solutions.

We can promote TCA as a tool to help measure not only emissions but also other externalities in natural, produced, social, and human capital. Such externalities are not being examined widely enough by food businesses, many of which currently focus on ESG measurement exclusively. Because ESG measurement is limited to capturing easily quantifiable inputs, it misses out on the system’s complexity,  often leading to unreliable ESG ratings. Moreover, it does not allow measurement of impacts and outcomes. TCA is a sharper, more refined tool, based on systems thinking, and it allows measurement of impacts and outcomes that can be reflected in company account books and shared with investors and shareholders.

We need to develop local food systems that cater to the needs of local people and promote diet diversity by producing healthy and nutritious food in a way that conserves local environments. Similarly, global food businesses need to focus on developing resilience against global risks in food value chains. In both cases, TCA provides the path to shift food systems to become more sustainable for both people and the planet.