The Global Environmental Impacts of Dutch Dietary Change

The environmental impacts of a nation’s food system are not only confined within its borders but extend across an international food supply chain. Impacts are highly dependent on consumption and a transition towards more plant-based food is a key pillar for reducing global environmental pressures, especially in high-income countries. Here we explore the changes in global environmental food production impacts from a Dutch dietary shift towards the EAT-Lancet diet. This shift results in global impact reduction across six impact categories, with the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (-68%). This Dutch dietary change can mostly result in environmental reductions outside the Netherlands (over 70% for water and land use, 58% for greenhouse gas emissions) driven largely from reductions in bovine meat and dairy consumption resulting in lower demand for international feed production. In particularly, Western European benefits the most in terms of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (-3335 kt), landuse (-606 kha), water use (-1927 Mm³) and nutrient application (-64 kt of nitrogen and phosphorus application). This suggests that Dutch food consumption changes do not act in isolation but can reinforce the environmental sustainability of trade-partner countries by lowering the externalized impacts of domestic consumption.