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The terms ‘Nordic countries’ or ‘The Nordics’ include the five countries Denmark, Finland, Island, Norway, and Sweden. This review includes evaluation of the Nordic countries against Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)/World Health Organizations’ (WHO) guiding principles for healthy, sustainable diets with respect to environmental impact (principles #9 – #13) and sociocultural aspects (principles #14 – #16). A food systems perspective is taken to summarize and discuss the most important challenges and opportunities for achieving sustainable diets. Food system, food security, self-sufficiency, and resilience perspectives are applied. The information can underpin decisions when developing and implementing Food Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDG) in the Nordics. None of the Nordic countries are on track to reach the 2030 UN climate and biodiversity goals. We describe how food production, processing, and consumption contribute to these and other environmental challenges, and what kinds of dietary changes/transitions consistent with these goals are required. A major challenge is the high production and consumption of meat and too low consumption of fish, vegetables, and fruits. Meat production is a major source of emissions and, together with farmed fish, heavily dependent on imported feed ingredients, leaving a large land-use and water footprint in exporting countries while domestic land resources are not used optimally. Dietary patterns have changed drastically over the past 50 years, and in large parts of the population, meat consumption has doubled since the 1970s, rendering historic food culture less useful as a basis for present-day recommendations. The Nordics have Europe’s lowest use of antibiotics in animal and fish production and have made some progress in reducing food waste along the food chain. A major opportunity is better alignment of food consumption and production based on local or regional production potentials, in conjunction with better and

Chemicals are the building blocks of today's consumer products, serving varied functional performance roles in materials, products and technologies. Recent data reveal that ~350,000 chemicals and chemical mixtures have been registered globally for production and use (Wang et al., 2020). Common examples, such as plasticizers, flame retardants, and preservatives, are prevalent in various consumer products. Exposure to several chemicals has been associated with detrimental effects on human health and on ecological integrity. Consumer products can be a significant source of human exposure to their chemicals constituents due to close contact during use; they can further harm ecosystems and wildlife when they enter natural environments. Overall, chemicals in consumer products can be released from multiple life cycle stages, enter multiple environmental compartments, and expose humans and ecological receptors through multiple pathways and routes (Fantke et al., 2021; Li et al., 2021). Such a “multidimensionality” of the issue of chemicals in consumer products necessitates a thorough understanding and effective management in the context of environmental sustainability.

Interior paints contain organic chemicals that might be harmful to painters and building residents. This study aims to develop a high-throughput approach to screen near-field human exposures and health impacts related to organic chemicals in interior paints. We developed mass balance models for both water- and solvent-based paints, predicting emissions during wet and dry phases. We then screened exposures and risks, focusing on Sri Lanka where residential houses are frequently repainted. These models accurately predict paint drying time and indoor air concentrations of organic chemicals. Exposures of both painter and household resident were estimated for 65 organic chemicals in water-based and 26 in solvent-based paints, considering 12 solvents. Chemicals of concerns (CoCs) were identified, and maximum acceptable chemical contents (MACs) were calculated. Water-based paints generally pose lower health risks than solvent-based paints but might contain biocides of high concern. The total human health impact of one painting event on all household adults ranges from 1.5×10-3 to 2.1×10-2 DALYs for solvent-based paints, and from 4.1×10-4 to 9.5×10-3 DALYs for water-based paints. The present approach is a promising way to support the formulation of safer paint, and is integrated in USEtox3 for use in life cycle assessment, chemical substitution and risk screening.

With the increasing global concern over plastics' environmental and human health impacts, the urgency for effective regulatory measures is evident. The UN Environment Assembly's initiative to establish an international, legally binding instrument via the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution marks a significant step toward addressing this issue. However, the vast diversity of plastic types and their myriad applications present a complex challenge in pinpointing the most critical targets for regulation. This study builds on the existing body of literature to outline potential key criteria for identifying Polymers of Concern (PoC). We recommend a dual-focused definition of PoCs considering both (1) the type of the plastics and (2) their domain of applications based on the environmental and human health impacts throughout the polymer's life cycle. Recognizing the current gaps in our understanding of the full spectrum of plastics' impacts across their life cycles, we suggest adopting a precautionary approach that factors in the volume of plastics entering natural ecosystems alongside their life cycle impacts as reported in the literature. We then bring forward existing data on the assessment of some of the main polymer types and applications. We propose that policymakers examine a wide spectrum of strategies including not only bans and phaseouts but also economic incentives, innovation, and the redesign of plastic materials and products to mitigate the adverse impacts of PoCs. We further emphasize the importance of thoroughly assessing the feasibility, costs, and environmental, social and economic implications of alternative materials to avoid “regrettable substitution.” We conclude by identifying existing knowledge gaps and emphasizing the need for further research to refine the proposed criteria for identifying PoCs.

Chemicals assessment and management frameworks rely on regulatory toxicity values, which are based on points of departure (POD) identified following rigorous dose–response assessments. Yet, regulatory PODs and toxicity values for inhalation exposure (i.e., reference concentrations [RfCs]) are available for only ∼200 chemicals. To address this gap, we applied a workflow to determine surrogate inhalation route PODs and corresponding toxicity values, where regulatory assessments are lacking. We curated and selected inhalation in vivo data from the U.S. EPA’s ToxValDB and adjusted reported effect values to chronic human equivalent benchmark concentrations (BMCh) following the WHO/IPCS framework. Using ToxValDB chemicals with existing PODs associated with regulatory toxicity values, we found that the 25th %-ile of a chemical’s BMCh distribution (POD25BMCh) could serve as a suitable surrogate for regulatory PODs (Q2 ≥ 0.76, RSE ≤ 0.82 log10 units). We applied this approach to derive POD25BMCh for 2,095 substances with general non-cancer toxicity effects and 638 substances with reproductive/developmental toxicity effects, yielding a total coverage of 2,160 substances. From these POD25BMCh, we derived probabilistic RfCs and human population effect concentrations. With this work, we have expanded the number of chemicals with toxicity values available, thereby enabling a much broader coverage for inhalation risk and impact assessment.

Sub-optimal dietary patterns make major contributions to the Global Burden of Disease and are among the most pressing issues affecting human health. Consequently, they are key to consider when assessing the human health and other environmental impacts of foods and diets within life cycle assessments. The UN Environment Life Cycle Initiative convened a task force on nutrition-related human health impacts as part of the Global Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method (GLAM) project. The health impacts of dietary patterns can be expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), in line with reporting human health impacts of other impact categories within the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework. The task force held a workshop with nutrition experts to receive guidance in its process to develop a consensus-based impact assessment framework for addressing nutrition-related health impacts in LCIA. The workshop aimed to (1) evaluate the general assessment framework, (2) discuss scientific questions for quantifying human health impacts from nutrition for food items and diets, and (3) provide initial guidance for further development. The proposed framework based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) risk ratios was regarded as a good starting point to assess the relative health risks of the general population, provided that the dietary context is considered and several limitations, such as incomplete disease coverage, are acknowledged. The experts advised against a potentially misleading use of adult-derived dietary risk factors for children. To improve global coverage of the GLAM framework, it is important to consider a wider range of dietary patterns. The experts also recommended using a metric complementary to DALYs, such as nutrient adequacy, also considering, e.g., vitamin A and iron, to complement the assessment.