A rapid evidence assessment of UK citizen and industry understandings of sustainability - Why our understanding of sustainable food is important when making food choices

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London and collaborative partners to carry out a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) on UK citizen perceptions of food sustainability. This Executive Summary presents the findings of this REA, along with academic definitions of food sustainability (and how citizen definitions compare to these), and a rapid review of industry and NGO approaches to sustainability amongst a small random selection of 21 organisations across the food system. Please refer to the full report and appendices for detailed findings and methodology.\ud \ud The main research question addressed is: What does sustainability mean to UK citizens when it comes to food and diet? The report addresses the following secondary questions: How does the UK academic literature define sustainability, ‘sustainable food’ and ‘sustainable diet’?, how do citizens’ perceptions compare to this, and ‘What does sustainability mean to industry when it comes to food and diet?’. 'A number of sub-questions and themes were explored to answer the main research question, such as understanding and importance of sustainability and its impact on food choices, trade-offs, drivers and barriers to sustainable food choices and differences across demographic groups.\ud \ud To note: In this Executive Summary we refer to communities and individuals in the UK as “UK citizens”, rather than UK consumers. The use of the term citizen is not meant to be a reference to citizenship either directly via birth in the UK or through the process of naturalization.