Sustainability Metrics
The Sustainability Metrics project, as well as this site itself, are works in progress. All data and analyses shown here are preliminary. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this site or the accompanying Shiny app, feel free to reach out to Chris at christopher.donovan@uvm.edu.
1 Introduction
Sustainable food systems are increasingly recognized as essential, not only in meeting human needs, but in doing so within planetary bounds (Conijn et al. 2018). Approximately 42% of world’s population depend on agriculture for employment, which is a challenging endeavor in the face of farm consolidation, changing consumption patterns, and climate change (Giller et al. 2021; Aznar-Sánchez et al. 2019). Food systems themselves are responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, while anthropogenic climate change has reduced agricultural output by 21% in the last 60 years (Crippa et al. 2021; Ortiz-Bobea et al. 2021).
Tools for diagnosing and monitoring the sustainability of food systems are thus vital (Fanzo et al. 2021). However, there is little consensus on how to define, let alone measure food system sustainability (Allen and Prosperi 2016; Béné et al. 2019). And while there is an abundance of research at the global level (Bathaei and Štreimikienė 2023; Chaudhary, Gustafson, and Mathys 2018), there exist gaps in understanding at the local, regional, and landscape levels (Dale et al. 2012).
2 Sustainability Metrics
The Sustainability Metrics project is an effort to develop both the conceptual and methodological frameworks to define and measure regional food system sustainability in New England. The framework could be used to monitor sustainability over time and inform interventions at the policy and farm levels, creating a healthier and more resilient food system for both social and ecological ends.
The project is led by the Food Systems Research Institute at the University of Vermont in partnership with, and funded by, the USDA ARS Food Systems Research Unit in Burlington, Vermont. Five teams of researchers and numerous community partners are currently conducting primary research on the development and measurement of indicators for food system sustainability. You can find more information about this work at the UVM FSRI Sustainability Metrics website. For now, what you will find here is a growing collection of secondary data, visualizations, and exploratory analyses to help support the project.
Metadata and citations will be provided throughout the document, but it is worth appreciating the work of the folks at USDA AMS Food and Agriculture Mapper and Explorer in particular, as many of the data shown here were cleaned and compiled in their data warehouse. Considerable inspiration was also found from the Food Systems Dashboard, developed by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
3 About FSRI
The Food Systems Research Institute at the University of Vermont is transforming the research landscape by funding collaborative projects that put people and the planet first, break down traditional academic silos and are integrated with and responsive to the needs of the communities we serve, including decision-makers, farmers, and food systems actors.
Rooted in the belief that no one group can find the answers alone, FSRI empowers researchers to work together across disciplines to address critical issues like soil health, food security, and climate resilience. Instead of funding research that leads to short-term fixes, our commitment is to give researchers the freedom, resources, and time they need to do relevant research that will inform policies, practices, and programs that will long outlast their work.
FSRI considers the relationship of food systems across scales from local to global and is a partnership between UVM and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS). FSRI’s transdisciplinary approach prioritizes research that studies food systems as a whole, including the networks of people, institutions, physical infrastructure, and natural resources through which food is grown, processed, distributed, sold, prepared, and eaten.
Learn more about us at the Food Systems Research Institute website.
4 License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.