Food

Choosing vegetables. Photo: Vincent Tremeau / World Bank

Photo: R. Kautsky/Azote

Food lies at the heart of healthy people, thriving societies and a sustainable planet. One of humanity’s greatest challenges is how to produce enough healthy food for the growing world population while at the same time reducing food’s negative social and environmental impacts.

The science is clear - food systems must change if we are to rise to this challenge and support sustainable development for all. But what mechanisms could achieve an equitable food system transformation at scale?

The food-related research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre is diverse. Our research encompasses the entire food system, from primary production, including ecosystem services and ‘blue foods’ from marine and freshwater environments, through processing, storage, distribution, retail, and governance, to consumption, alongside tools and interventions that shape consumer behavior and system-wide sustainability outcomes.

We analyse food systems all over the world, giving a global perspective on land use change, food trade and risks associated with our current food systems. Regional research highlights the role of indigenous knowledge, gastronomic landscapes and small-scale ‘seeds’ of hope in sustainable food systems.

To extend our knowledge beyond the scientific evidence, we work with a range of food system actors, from large ‘keystone’ actors to policy-makers, and youth groups to farmers and fishers.

Throughout these diverse strands of research, there is a common emphasis on achieving food system sustainability at all levels of the food supply chain and in multiple contexts and geographical regions.

To that end, three action tracks guide our work:

  • Transdisciplinary approaches for food system transformation
  • Navigating the solution space
  • Food system resilience and equity in the Anthropocene

Key publications about Food

Rockström J., Haraksingh Thilsted, S., Willett, W.C., Gordon, L.J., et.al. 2025. The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(25)01201-2

Gordon, L.J., Bignet, V., Crona, B., Henriksson, P.J.G., et. al. 2017. Rewiring food systems to enhance human health and biosphere stewardship. Environ. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa81dc

Wood, A., Swan, J., Masino, T., Tørnqvist, B. & Röös, E. 2025. Meat is healthy, green and vital to social and economic sustainability: frames used by the red meat industry during development of the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations. Environ. Res.: Food Syst. https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/ad8e6b

Röös, E., Jacobsen, M., Karlsson, L., Wanecek, W., Spångberg, J., Mazac, R., & Rydhmer, L. (2025). Introducing a comprehensive and configurable tool for calculating environmental and social footprints for use in dietary assessments. Journal of Cleaner Production, 519, 146002.

Troell, M., B. Costa-Pierce, C. Stead, R.S. Cottrell, C. Brugere, A.K. Farmery, D. Little, Å. Strand, R. Pullin, D. Soto, M. Beveridge, K. Salie, J. Dresdner, P. Moraes-Valenti, J. Blanchard, P. James, R. Yossa, E. Allison, C. Devaney and U. Barg. 2023. Perspectives on aquaculture's contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals for improved human and planetary health. Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 54(2): 251– 342.

Resare Sahlin, K., Trewern, J. A systematic review of the definitions and interpretations in scientific literature of ‘less but better’ meat in high-income settings. Nat Food 3, 454–460 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00536-5

Jonsson, A., Haider, L.J., Pereira, L., Fremier, A., et. al. 2024. Nurturing gastronomic landscapes for biosphere stewardship. Global Food Security. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100789

Baudish, I., Resare Sahlin, K., Béné, C., Oosterveer, P., et. al. 2024. Power & protein—closing the ‘justice gap’ for food system transformation. Environ. Res. Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad3d6f

Willett, W.C., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., et.al. 2019. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4

Crona, B.I., Wassénius, E., Jonell, M., Zachary Koehn, J., et. al. 2023. Four ways blue foods can help achieve food system ambitions across nations. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05737-x

Bunge, A.C., Mazac, R., Clark, M., Wood, A., & Gordon, L.J. 2024. Sustainability benefits of transitioning from current diets to plant-based alternatives or whole-food diets in Sweden. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45328-6

All Food publications

Governance Arrangements That Fit Social‐Ecological Context Are Associated With Fishery Sustainability

Journal / article | 2026

Mateja Nenadović, Alfredo Giron, Timothy Frawley, Adrian Munguia‐Vega, Kara E. Pellowe, Erica Ferrer, David Gill, Blanca González‐Mon, Andrew F. Johnson, Emilie Lindkvist, Fiorenza Micheli, Amy H. Weaver, Octavio Aburto, Ana Laura Flores‐Morales, Fiona Gladstone, Elizabeth Mansfield, Guido Marinone, Alejandro Parés‐Sierra, Anastasia Quintana, Jessica Reilly Moman, Salvador Rodriguez Van Dyck, Maja Schlueter, Jorge Torre, Björn Vollan, Heather M. Leslie, Xavier Basurto. 2026. Governance Arrangements That Fit Social‐Ecological Context Are Associated With Fishery Sustainability. Fish and Fisheries. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.70060

In many parts of the world, natural resources are primarily managed by governance arrangements at the local level. Those arrangements range from collective, such as cooperatives and associations, to individualistic, such as patrons and owner-operators. A key question is how such arrangements influence resource use and associated social and ecological outcomes. We hypothesize that sustainable resource use is not associated with...

Global nutritional equity of fishmeal and aquaculture trade flows

Journal / article | 2026

Laura G. Elsler, Jessica A. Gephart, Jessica Zamborain-Mason, Tim Cashion, Max Troell, Rosamond L. Naylor, Rahul Agrawal Bejarano, Christopher D. Golden. 2026. Global nutritional equity of fishmeal and aquaculture trade flows. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2506699123

Aquaculture, the single fastest growing food sector, is central to achieving key Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., SDG 2: Zero Hunger). Linking the nutrient composition of >2,800 aquatic species with >2 million fishmeal and farmed fish transactions in international aquatic food trade between 2015 and 2019, we examined aquaculture’s nutritional flows and distributional equity. We found that aquaculture provided adequate inta...

An expanded evaluation of global fisheries management organizations on the high seas

Journal / article | 2025

Gabrielle Carmine, Melissa R Cronin, Carden Barkley, Chelsea L Tuohy, Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, Henrik Österblom, Jennifer Jacquet, Patrick N Halpin. 2025. An expanded evaluation of global fisheries management organizations on the high seas. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae1b1e

The high seas comprise nearly half the Earth’s surface and the 2023 United Nations Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement renewed efforts to better manage this vast area. Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are tasked with a UN dual-mandate to ensure the (1) long-term conservation of fish stocks and their associated ecosystems while managing the (2) sustainable use of high seas fisheries. Building ...

Leveraging port state measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

Journal / article | 2025

Jim Leape, Bronwen Golder, Richard Barnes, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Dawn Borg-Costanzi, Jessica L Decker Sparks, Jaeyoon Park, Robert Blasiak, Elizabeth R Selig, Shinnosuke Nakayama, Colette C.C. Wabnitz. 2025. Leveraging port state measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads1592

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens the sustainability of fisheries and communities dependent on them. The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) is a key tool for combatting IUU fishing by foreign fleets, requiring standardized inspections, information sharing, and port denial. Using satellite data, we characterized how PSMA has affected high seas vessel behavior and identify opportunities to strengthen...

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