Centre director Johan Rockström and board member Pavan Sukhdev provided the opening key note speech at the 2016 EAT Stockholm Food Forum with a fresh take on how food links to all the Sustainable Development Goals.

EAT STOCKHOLM FOOD FORUM

Looking back at 2016 EAT Stockholm Food Forum

Third annual forum presents exciting new partnerships and initiatives

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The third annual EAT Stockholm Food Forum took place on 13 and 14 June 2016. Bringing, science, policy and business together, this high-level event uses food as a lens to tackle the manifold health and sustainability challenges that humanity faces. The global food system is at the centre of these challenges and a source of their solutions.

Outcomes
Amid the buzz and the beat, there was progression on several fronts when it comes to new and important partnerships. This year marked the Launch of the EAT foundation supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Stordalen foundation. This initiative will bring together experts and decision makers who can come together to change the way we eat and how our eating transforms the planet. The Stockholm Resilience Centre will coordinate the science activity of the foundation.

A new EAT-Lancet Commission was launched to investigate the linkages between diet, human health and the state of the planet. Can the global food system be fixed? Deputy director Line Gordon will together with other researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre play a major role in the commission.

The forum also saw the partnership between The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and EAT Foundation to accelerate the transformation towards a healthy and sustainable global food system. On stage, Dr. Gunhild Stordalen, president and founder of the EAT Foundation, discussed the role and responsiblity of the international business community with Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and Femi Oke, host of the forum.

Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40 Cities Climate Leadership, introduced the new C40 Food Systems Network which was launched on the first day of the forum. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is focused on tackling climate change and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban citizens.

Click here to get a complete overview of the outcomes from the 2016 EAT Food Forum

Social media
#EATforum 2016 blew up on social media and engaged many hundreds of thousands of people around the world passionate about the interwoven challenge of food, health and sustainability. More than 7,000 tweets from over 2,000 people and organisations
contributed to the #EATforum 2016 conversation and the engaging discussion reached over 12,000,000 people helped by the event being live streamed for the first time. The star of the show was without doubt the Sustainable Development Goals "wedding cake" illustration presented by Johan Rockström and Pavan Sukhdev (see below). Their presentation was the opening key note during the forum (see video above).

The illustration by Rockström and Sukhdev integrated the global goals together and deftly illustrated the biosphere foundation for global sustainability and how food links to every one of the global goals. Click here to download the illustration.

Jamie Oliver and his #foodrevolution also galvanized the forum audience during his conversation with the host of the forum, Femi Oke.

These five tweets were the most ‘retweeted’ ones during the two days of #EATforum.

Credit all forum pictures: EAT 2016 Johan Lygrell

Published: 2016-06-21

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