The Social License to Practice Sustainability: Concepts, Barriers and Actions to Support Nutrition and Dietetics Practitioners in Contributing to Sustainable Food Systems

ABSTRACT

There is growing recognition of the human health co-benefits of some dietary patterns considered more sustainable. Nutrition and dietetics professionals (NDPs) are well positioned to facilitate dietary change but their role in supporting sustainable food systems and diets is ambiguous. Researchers used Delphi Inquiry methods to explore how NDPs in 30 nations envision sustainable food systems, their perceived roles, barriers, and supports needed. Results indicate not all agree it is within their scope of practice, and highlight barriers across several system levels and scales, including an unsupportive professional culture, societal and ecological barriers. Strong leadership, learning, and collaboration are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable food systems
• nutritionist
• dietitian
• sustainability
• barriers

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the research assistance of Rebecca Laycock Pedersen in data collection and analysis for this project, and Sheela Krishnaswamy for project support and guidance.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the International Confederation of Dietetics Associations (ICDA), and Blekinge Institute for Technology; Blekinge Tekniska Högskola;