Sustainable Food and Land Use

FABLE 
CONSORTIUM

SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND LAND USE

Our Work Towards Sustainable Food and Land Use

Our multidisciplinary team at SDSN is working closely with key partners, countries, and network members at different levels to facilitate and catalyze system-level transformations of food and land use systems, a key dimension of global development, climate, and nature agendas. Through the FABLE and FELD program teams, we provide technical inputs, practical modeling, comparative policy and systems-focused analysis, and related capacity building to help improve and accelerate critical intervention areas related to the fourth SDG transformation to achieve sustainable food, land, water, and oceans. 

Featured Video

CURRENT PROJECTS

The Food, Environment, Land and Development (FELD) Action Tracker is a strategic initiative under the Food and Land Use (FOLU) Coalition, led by the UN Sustainable Solutions Network (SDSN). The Action Tracker is complementing other initiatives by the Coalition, dedicated to providing practical support to countries’ transformation of food and land use systems: It does so by systematically analysing national policies; by tracking the resulting implementation and other related actions; by identifying good practices to be shared on a dedicated platform; and by assessing specific impact and overall progress against national and global strategies and targets under the Paris Climate Agreement and the SDGs.


The FELD programme and its methodologies are designed to support countries and their partners in devising, implementing and improving effective and ambitious policies for transforming their food and land-use systems and practices.

The Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy (FABLE) Consortium is a collaborative initiative created in 2017. FABLE mobilizes leading knowledge institutions across the globe to develop decision-support tools and analysis for integrated long-term food and land-use pathways at national and global scales.


FABLE aims to build local capacity to model complex food and land-use systems and to support the development of national pathways that are consistent with global objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement targets, and can inform national policy commitments, particularly on climate and biodiversity.

The global agriculture and food system in its current form is unsustainable across all three pillars of sustainable development. The Thematic Network on Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems seeks to promote major shifts at all scales – international, national and sub-national – and in all sectors, from food production to consumption, to achieve the SDGs related to poverty, food and nutrition security, health, rural development, and the environment. We accomplish this through publications and synthesis reports, and events and webinars to raise awareness, disseminate good practice, and promote solutions. 

RECENT FOOD/LAND NEWS

By Morvarid Bagherzadeh, Freerk Boedeltje, Cecil Haverkamp 31 Jul, 2023
In June 2023, the World Resource Institute (WRI), jointly with the Norwegian flagship International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) and the Bezos Earth Fund (BEF) – two of the world’s largest public and private funders of climate and nature-related work – convened the first Land & Carbon Lab Summit. The Summit was held at the center of European politics in Brussels, appealing to the European Union as a leading policymaker, and intended to attract many organizational participants.
By Maria Diaz, Freerk Boedeltje, Cecil Haverkamp 29 Jun, 2023
On the basis of the NDC analyses by the FELD Action Tracker, SDSN was invited and approved to the 200+ member NDC Partnership, the main global platform to support the Paris Climate Agreement. Aside from country-driven technical assistance mechanisms, the NDC Partnership organizes the Global NDC Conference, jointly with UNDP and the German Government.
By FABLE Consortium 06 Jun, 2023
New research conducted by the FABLE Colombia team led by Javeriana University, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) sheds light on the urgent need to adapt restoration policies in Colombia. This policy brief presents key findings from the analysis, highlighting the importance of focusing on specific areas that have not been adequately addressed in current restoration efforts. By considering these overlooked areas, Colombia can mitigate the adverse effects of deforestation, promote biodiversity conservation, and contribute to climate change mitigation.
Show More

RECENT REPORTS & PUBLICATIONS

FABLE   June 6, 2023

Ecological Restoration and Deforestation Control: Implications for Colombia’s Agriculture and Climate Goals

New research conducted by the FABLE Colombia team led by Javeriana University, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) sheds light on the urgent need to adapt restoration policies in Colombia. This policy brief presents key findings from the analysis, highlighting the importance of focusing on specific areas that have not been adequately addressed in current restoration efforts. By considering these overlooked areas, Colombia can mitigate the adverse effects of deforestation, promote biodiversity conservation, and contribute to climate change mitigation.

FABLE   November 30, 2022

Ecological Restoration and Deforestation Control: Implications for Colombia’s Agriculture and Climate Goals

Updated analysis by the FELD Action Tracker on behalf of the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU), reviewing an expanded set of 24 NDCs covering 50 countries, including all G20 members representing 80% of global emissions. The analysis assesses current NDCs for their commitments and policies related to food and land use, their focus on action and “practicalities of implementation”. FELD’s work is supported by the Governments of the United Kingdom and Norway.

FABLE   October 27, 2022

National food and land mitigation pathways for net zero

This research by the FABLE Consortium, an initiative convened under the Food and Land Use Coalition, shows the critical need for countries to promote sustainable food consumption and production in order to keep global warming below 2˚C.

The brief highlights how countries’ food and land use systems can contribute to net zero targets. It classifies countries into six profiles, in order to identify priority actions in their food and land use systems according to their specific contexts. 

FABLE | March 24, 2022

Pathways for Food and Land Use Systems to Contribute to Global Biodiversity Targets

The brief focuses on the achievements of the following three global biodiversity targets from the CBD post-2020 framework (CBD/WG2020/3/3), by 2030 and 2050. The study develops the modelling of two possible future scenarios for the 20 FABLE countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Germany, Finland, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

FELD | November 9, 2021

From Global Commitments to National Action: A Closer Look at Nationally Determined Contributions from a Food and Land Perspective

This new report from the Food and Land Use (FOLU) Coalition and SDSN's FELD Action Tracker, presents results from a systematic analysis of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted before October 2021 by G20 members and key forested countries from the FOLU Coalition, in advance of COP26. It assesses how action-oriented the NDCs are in terms of transforming the food and land sector, what specific policy measures they propose and where policy gaps and opportunities are.

FABLE | October 28, 2021

The integration of biodiversity and climate objectives in land-use policy

The Food and Land team at SDSN launched a policy brief to present the case for the need to integrate nature and climate. The brief, entitled, “The integration of biodiversity and climate objectives in land-use policy” was published on October 29, 2021. The purpose of the brief is to outline practical steps for policymakers, particularly drawing on spatial planning, to operationalize the 30x30 target (conserving 30% of the Earth’s land and sea areas by 2030) and meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Explore all Publications

PAST PROJECTS

Nature Map Consortium

The Nature Map Consortium developed an integrated global map of biodiversity, carbon, and clean water supply to support countries to integrate nature and climate in decision making and promote nature-based solutions. Nature Map offers freely available global maps of terrestrial biodiversity, carbon stocks and water supply, designed to support governments in policy design. Nature Map's methods are currently being applied at the national level. Such maps are needed to support bold and operational biodiversity objectives and integrated strategies to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change. Thus, Nature Map can play a critical role in making the 2021 Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in China a success.



Learn More >>>

The Food Sector and the Sustainable Development Goals

For years, the lack of consensus on the key principles defining an “SDG-aligned” or “sustainable” business has created confusion and enabled greenwashing. Existing frameworks and ESG indexes have generally overlooked or neglected certain aspects of business activities that are critical to understanding the overall impacts of companies on the SDGs.


SDSN along with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) developed the Four Pillar Framework and 21 standards address these gaps, defining what SDG-alignment looks like across issue areas and business activities, using a due diligence approach adapted from the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.


Learn More >>>

TEAM

CONTACT

Email

FABLE: info.fable@unsdsn.org

FELD: info.feld@unsdsn.org

Thematic Network on Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems: lauren.barredo@unsdsn.org

Receive updates on Sustainable Food & Land Use Systems

Subscribe
Share by: