Food systems will shape our future

Geodesiq Strategies for Healthy, Sustainable Food Systems

Food is woven into virtually all areas of human experience. Food depends on the health of Nature, on climate patterns, on watersheds, on vibrant, resilient ecosystems, and yet, we too often see ourselves as disconnected from questions of planetary health. Planetary health is integral to human health and wellbeing, and to the economic and political security of nations.

What that means in practice

  1. There is no way to separate food production and distribution from the health of Nature and climate stability.
  2. Even entirely integrated indoor farming systems need water, and Nature loss and climate disruption interfere with water supplies.
  3. Climate disruption is also degrading the ability of productive lands to efficiently produce agricultural goods.
  4. Unsustainable practices are forcing hidden price increases into our whole economy, through food systems.
  5. The costs of climate shocks, land and water degradation, Nature loss, and impacts on human health from industrialized foods, pose a serious risk to national fiscal stability.
  6. We cannot afford to keep letting this get worse; major investment to drive a shift to sustainable food systems is urgently needed.

We need better metrics

Financial institutions, including governments, currently do not measure most of the non-financial value loss associated with unsustainable food systems. The best estimate we have of that cost was produced by the Food System Economics Commission, which found that annual costs amount to US $15.428 trillion per year, across the world. (That’s US $42.27 billion per day.)

Much of that cost relates to poor health outcomes from toxic effects of unhealthy food. Next is climate-related and environmental costs. Lost labor is another widespread area of cost to society. When we don’t make the right investments at the right time, achieving desired good outcomes in the future gets harder. That’s what it comes down to.

Food-related hidden costs are a major contributor to income inequality, inflation, and other macroeconomic risks. Many financial institutions continue to hold firm in claiming that they should only look at the short-term bottom line and not consider wider environmental and social costs and related material risks. Insurers, however, have been clear in their decision-making: Not counting your risk does not mean it is not real.

Multidimensional value-creation (MVC) metrics are coming. They are a necessary ingredient for any well-functioning, prosperous 21st-century economy. Those corporate and financial institutions that wait the longest to adjust will see the most downside from the rise of these more finely tuned and ubiquitous performance metrics.

Geodesiq supports AVTR, the Active Value Trust Ratings initiative, which is developing some of these MVC metrics. The goal is to be able to provide actionable insight to those looking to secure assets and operations against future downside risk from both the degradation of planetary health and from the coming rapid transition to non-financial performance tracking.

What kind of food do we need?

There has been a long debate about what constitutes “healthy food”. There is a similarly complex and widely varied debate about what constitutes “sustainable” food production. A few things are not in dispute, however, and it would be foolish not to consider these basic facts:

  • Food that improves and maintains human health is better than food that does not—for the people consuming it and for society in general.
  • Natural, whole food products—that have not been doused with chemicals and which are not fabricated through intensive industrial-chemical processes—are healthier and more valuable to society.
  • Climate disruption is an unaffordable risk, which major financial regulators like the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have found will eventually destabilize the financial system and crash the mainstream economy.
  • Food systems are uniquely vulnerable to climate disruption, in all areas of risk, because they not only are degraded by climate change, but they also are a major driver of climate change.
  • That means food system actors throughout the value chain could see rapid declines in public subsidies and private investment, if they do not shift to health-building sustainable practices.

While there is no one universal definition of sustainability, two things provide clear insight:

  1. A business activity is more sustainable if current practices do not make it harder to generate future revenues;
  2. the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out an excellent, flexible and universally applicable roadmap to achieving more sustainable economies and societies.

So, it is clear: More informed societies will begin to prioritize naturally grown, regenerative, climate-resilient, production methods, especially if they increase both financial and non-financial returns to the local economy and for the wider market and international community. The most efficient way to optimize capital allocation to achieve meaningful improvements is to consider, and then act to reduce, threats to human health.

The Geodesiq approach

Geodesiq aims to bring more of this insight to more communities and institutions, and to help support policy-development that leads to the wisest investment of resources for the benefit of current and future generations. Sustaining the future of food is beyond politics; it is beyond the interests of business or industry. Food will shape our future, and we need to start making sure it does so in the healthiest, safest, and most value-building way.

By

Joseph Robertson

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