Synergies and trade-offs between crisis preparedness and environmental sustainability of school meals in Sweden

Abstract

Recent demands and efforts to increase the food preparedness of Swedish municipalities call for an examination of how sustainable development and resilience is addressed in preparedness planning. This study explores opportunities and barriers for environmental sustainability and crisis preparedness to go hand in hand, using the case of school meals in Sweden. Specifically, we ask how recent crises and calls for preparedness affect the municipalities' work with sustainable school meals and what short-term solutions and long-term strategies may have emerged as a result. A national survey of 120 municipality officials and five semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results indicate that municipality officials generally do not find that there is a trade-off between environmental sustainability and preparedness work for school meals, with several noting that the increased focus on preparedness rather opens up for an increased focus on local food systems and using public procurement as a tool for shaping the production landscape. The findings presented in this report show that while the emphasis currently seems to be on organizing a crisis management and quickly putting in place short-term interventions to increase preparedness, the interviews with dietary managers and procurement officers provide examples of how improved food preparedness can be achieved simultaneously as the food system is pushed in a more sustainable direction. Still, municipalities around the country are at very different stages in their preparedness planning and environmental ambitions vary greatly. A clear national strategy that treats food preparedness and a sustainability transition of food systems as linked policy areas would therefore be beneficial in order to exploit synergies and manage trade-offs. By sharing risk with and building capacity of local food producers, public meal operations could play a key role in supporting and developing a food system that is resilient in the event of a crisis at the same time as it reduces the negative impact of food on climate and the environment. We conclude that the present moment represents a unique window of opportunity for deliberately exploiting synergies between increased preparedness, resilience, and sustainability of food systems.

Published in

Mistra Food Futures Report
2024, number: 22ISBN: 978-91-8046-718-6, eISBN: 978-91-8046-719-3Publisher: Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

UKÄ Subject classification

Food Science
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/131859