(P23-011-25) Sustainability Nutrition Balance: A Metric Integrating Nutrition and Environmental Impact of Foods in the Context of Whole Diets

Objectives: Food consumption significantly impacts both human and planetary health, demanding integrative approaches to assessing the nutrition and environmental sustainability of food products. This study evaluates the Sustainability Nutrition Balance (SNB) score, an integrated metric indicating the environmental burden of food products in relation to the nutritional value they bring to a nutritionally adequate diet for a specific population. These scores may be valuable to guide product development and communication in the direction of more nutrient-dense, environmentally sustainable diets.

Methods: We present a methodological approach for calculating the SNB score using an optimization-based framework incorporating Dutch nutrition recommendations and food consumption, composition and cradle-to-plate environmental impact data. The dependency on the dietary context was tested by calculating the SNB score for different age- and sex-groups. Various methodological choices, including optimization strategies and regression approach, were systematically tested for their influence on the SNB score. Sensitivity analyses using Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to evaluate the robustness of the results.

Results: As anticipated and intended, the SNB score demonstrated high dependency on the dietary context. Although mean SNB scores of food groups differed across the different age- and sex-groups, they generally followed the same direction except for legumes: the mean SNB score of legumes was negative for women and positive for men. The results of the Monte Carlo analysis indicate that poor data quality compromised the robustness of the SNB score. Methodological choices such as optimization method and constraints influenced the SNB score, but to a lesser degree as compared to dietary context.

Conclusions: The SNB score provides a context-sensitive metric integrating nutrition and environmental impact at a diet level. While the approach offers valuable insights, its applicability is limited by data intensity, methodological complexity, and understandability. Future work should focus on simplifying the framework, enhancing data quality, and addressing challenges in global scalability and stakeholder communication.

Funding Sources: This research was funded by the Dutch Dairy Association.