Sustainable food
Sustainable food involves feeding the entire population in a way that benefits people, the planet and places.
To achieve this, we need to produce, transform, sell, buy and consume food in a way that generates economic prosperity, promotes social justice, looks after, conserves and regenerates our resources and ecosystems, and safeguards future generations’ ability to also eat sustainably. Sustainable food is:
Good for people
because it guarantees that everyone has access to the necessary information, education and resources to produce, prepare, buy and enjoy safe, healthy and delicious quality food that allows us to enjoy a full life. To this end, sustainable food is sensitive to the needs of the most vulnerable people.
Good for the territories
because it promotes local economies and guarantees the well-being of workers in the food system. Sustainable food underscores traditional diets and knowledge while acknowledging and celebrating the diversity of cultures that enrich our region. At the same time, it generates positive relationships between urban and rural environments, and even between the global south and north, establishing fairer links between regions and promoting more resilient and supportive city models.
Good for the planet
because food is produced, transformed, distributed, sold, bought and eliminated in a way that ensures that our limited resources, such as water and the soil, as well as our ecosystems, are conserved and regenerated. Sustainable food helps to halt the climate crisis, guarantees the well-being of animals (livestock and wildlife) and preserves and boosts the planet's biodiversity.
Cities have a major role to play in transforming the food system. More than half of the world's population lives in cities, and cities are major centres of food consumption. Responding to some of the challenges of the food system means influencing at all possible levels, despite a limited reach. That is why the City Council created the Section on Urban Food Policies and Responsible Consumption, included within the Directorate of Social and Solidarity Economy Services and Sustainable Food of the City of Barcelona and is led by the Commissioner for Social and Solidarity Economy, Local Development and Food Policy.
Goals
In order to tackle the social, climate and ecological emergencies we are facing, and as many other cities around the world have already done, Barcelona City Council together with the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB) have promoted a process to draw up a Barcelona 2030 Healthy and Sustainable Food Strategy, which will be the shared roadmap to follow in terms of food policies in the city in the coming years.
The Barcelona 2030 Strategy for Healthy and Sustainable Food aims to be a city strategy, i.e. a strategy developed with and for all actors in the food system that facilitates the implementation of policies, projects and actions shared by all these stakeholders. It also aims to be a strategy with transformative power, one that challenges and involves the different stakeholders who want to contribute to the transformation of the food system in order to make it healthier, fairer and more sustainable.
