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Planetary Health: Advancing Sustainable Development Goals through Food


Nourish’s groundbreaking work was recently recognized in the Lancet Countdown 2024 Climate and Health Priorities for Canada. The report highlights Nourish’s leadership around the transformative potential of healthier diets for healthier people and a healthier planet, a vision we bring to life by integrating food, health, and sustainability into healthcare systems. 

Having recently joined two global communities of practice of the World Health Organization, we are thinking about how soil health and human health are connected, how food is central to our celebrations and well-being, and how our work contributes to the advancement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As the EAT-Lancet Commission states, “Food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth.” And by addressing food systems in healthcare, we are collectively advancing multiple SDGs:

How Nourish’s work connects with the SDGs

Nourish promotes access to nutritious food for all, advocating for food systems that prioritize equitable access to healthy, sustainable options. By embedding food as medicine within healthcare, we help to combat food insecurity and malnutrition in the short term through food prescriptions and partnerships, healthier hospital food environments, and by supporting longer-term shifts to sustainable agricultural practices across Canada.

By bringing food to a more central place in health and healing, Nourish contributes to better health outcomes and preventive care. Our work supports a shift to more cost-effective preventative health strategies such as chronic disease management through improved diets, strengthening community well-being, and building more just and resilient food systems.

Nourish champions sustainable food practices within healthcare, emphasizing sustainable, plant-forward sourcing and waste reduction. Our initiatives align healthcare procurement with environmental and social sustainability, promoting efficient use of resources and minimizing food waste.

Healthcare systems are significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and a critical partner in achieving our climate goals. By promoting plant-forward menus, waste reduction, sustainable sourcing through our Coolfood Pledge, members are reducing the carbon footprint of institutional food systems, within their walls and throughout their supply chains.

Collaboration is at the heart of Nourish’s work. We unite stakeholders from healthcare, food systems, and policy-making to co-create solutions, fostering innovation and accelerating progress toward the SDGs.

Nourish in Action

Through partnerships, workshops, and leadership programs, Nourish empowers healthcare leaders to rethink how food served and food systems can build planetary health. Whether it’s advocating for sustainable food procurement, reducing food waste, or supporting equitable access to nutritious meals, our work aims to position the Canadian healthcare sector as a global leader in advancing planetary health through food. Our hats go off to the tireless leaders working in hospital kitchens and board rooms, boots deep in soil out in the field, or at the patient’s bedside, trialing a new recipe!