Net Zero Festival: Changing diets for a changing climate

The food system has many long, complex supply chains with huge numbers of different producers and retailers spanning the journey from farm to fork. But it is a system that is facing huge threats from the physical impacts of climate change such as drought, floods and crop failure, while disruption from the growing interest in plant-based alteratives to meat and dairy products also poses a threat to the status quo.

It is, in short, a sector that is ripe for disruption, and one that is crucial to delivering the world's climate goals, by fostering a shift to more sustainable diets among consumers marked by less meat and dairy, and produce that does not fuel deforestation. But that means big changes for consumers, and only with their backing can those changes take place. So how can businesses bring them onside to the net zero transition in food?

In a discussion chaired by former M&S director of sustainable business Mike Barry, who is now a senior associate at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), a number of leading figures and thinkers on the changing food system gave their views on how to shift towards more sutainable, resilient diets as part of the transition to net zero. They included: Nomad Foods' group sustainability director Annelie Selander; Chris Daly, VP for strategy, sustainability and transformation in the supply chain at PepsiCo Europe; Nando's head of sustainability Henry Unwin; University of Oxford researcher Michael Clark; and Rebecca Tobi, project manager at the Food Foundation. The fascinating discussion can be watched in full above.

All of the panel debates, keynote speeches, and presentations from the world's first Net Zero Festival - which took place over three days from 30 September featuring hundreds of top speakers from business, politics and academia - are now available to watch again on demand through the Net Zero Festival website.