Towards Sustainable, Healthy and Profitable Food Systems: Nutrition and the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources Authored by the United Nations System Standing Committee for Nutrition*

The way humans acquire food, through agriculture and food systems, is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and agrochemical pollution of ecosystems (MA 2005; IPCC 2007, 2013; IAASTD 2009). Human nutrition, in turn, is highly dependent on multiple services provided by these ecosystems—for example, nutrient diversity, water quality, and climate regulation—and ensuring that these ecosystems are sustained for future generations (Deckelbaum et al. 2006; Herforth 2010; DeClerck et al. 2011; Remans and Smukler 2013). In the midst of climate change, the benefits of these ecosystems, with nutrition being an essential outcome of healthy ecosystems, are even more at risk. As we move forward into the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), nutrition and environmental sustainability should be considered intrinsically linked. This panel describes emerging thinking and practice at the nexus of nutrition, food systems, and natural resource management. Metrics and Monitoring In an analysis of the state of the planet and its people, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) concluded that to address many of the threats to human well-being, natural resource