The Bürger:innenrat Klima, which consisted of 160 randomly selected citizens, adopted final policy recommendations. The Bürger:innenrat was accompanied by “leading experts from science and industry”. Dr. Ulrike Eberle from corsus advised the Bürger:innenrat on nutrition, climate protection and recommendations for sustainable food systems.

The guiding principle adopted with an impressive majority of 98 percent in the Bürger:innenrat in the field of action is: “The conversion to climate-friendly agriculture should take place without delay and ensures the supply of healthy food, affordable for the entire population and a reliable income for the producers.”

In its recommendations, the Bürger:innenrat gets very specific and also calls in particular for the promotion of cooperative farming and for full-time farming to become profitable again. At the same time, this should also improve regional supply. In addition, clear rules for climate-friendly agriculture are also to be established, which encompass far more than simply looking at climate protection. In particular, they also take into account the protection of biodiversity, a reduction in livestock numbers and the orientation of subsidies to environmental performance.

A core recommendation is the orientation of the nutritional recommendations of the DGE to the planetary boundaries. This is because our diet makes a significant contribution to the overshooting of the limits, e.g. in the case of biodiversity but also in the case of the overfertilization of ecosystems.

In addition, it is recommended that food prices should reflect true costs and that foods that are harmful to the climate should become more expensive. However, it must be ensured that the basic supply of food is affordable for all. As an identifier for climate-friendly food, the Bürger:innenrat recommends introducing a mandatory climate traffic light indicator – an instrument also recommended by the Scientific Advisory Board for Agricultural Policy, Nutrition and Consumer Health Protection (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat für Agrarpolitik, Ernährung und gesundheitlichen Verbraucherschutz, WBAE) at the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) in its report in summer 2020.

We are very pleased that the Bürger:innenrat has taken into account in its recommendations that it is essential for the implementation of sustainable food systems to have the other relevant sustainability aspects in mind in addition to climate protection. After all, a sustainable diet is environmentally compatible and promotes health, is ethically responsible, is designed to be appropriate for everyday life, and enables socio-cultural diversity.