Mission
To support countries in designing and implementing school meal programmes that are both nutritious and environmentally sustainable—leveraging school meals as a strategic entry point for food systems transformation.
Why?
School meals have the potential to deliver multiple co-benefits: improving global health, supporting local economies, and reducing environmental impact. By shifting towards planet-friendly school meals, countries can address pressing challenges such as malnutrition, climate change, and biodiversity loss, while fostering healthier dietary habits among children that can have long-term impacts on the health of a nation.
How?
The CoP drives innovation in sustainable school meals through applied research and country-level collaboration, currently working with governments in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda in the first instance. A key initiative is the development of a Planet-Friendly School Meals Toolbox—a global public good designed to help countries develop costed, practical plans for implementing sustainable school meal programmes.
The toolbox will bring together tools for:
- Dietary assessment
- Clean and energy-efficient cooking approaches
- Menu planning and costing
- Food education and behaviour change
The toolbox is envisaged to help governments integrate planet-friendly menus, reduce food waste, optimise clean cooking technologies, and promote sustainability through food education.
Co-Chairs
Latest research
- Springmann M et al. The health, environmental, and cost implications of providing healthy and sustainable school meals for every child by 2030: a global modelling study (2025) The Lancet Planetary Health
- Pastorino S et al. Planet-friendly school meals: opportunities to improve children's health and leverage change in food systems (2024) The Lancet Planetary Health
- School Meals and Food Systems: Rethinking the consequences for climate, environment, biodiversity, and food sovereignty (2023)
Events
- School meals: Improving child health and leveraging food systems transformation, 31 March 2026
- School Meals and Food Systems White Paper: Phase II, Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2024 (short presentation)
- School meals for catalysing food system transformation, Research Consortium Annual Showcase 2023 (short presentation)
Resources
Read the Research Consortium's evidence-based white paper on "School Meals and Food Systems: Rethinking the consequences for climate, environment, biodiversity, and food sovereignty". Produced in collaboration with 164 contributors from 84 organizations worldwide.
Visit the Planet-Friendly School Meals Initiative page.