Food and biomass production systems are among the most prominent drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide. Halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity therefore requires transformative change of food and biomass systems, addressing the nexus of agricultural production, processing and transport, retailing, consumer preferences and diets, as well as investment, climate action and ecosystem conservation and restoration. The RAINFOREST project will contribute to enabling, upscaling and accelerating transformative change to reduce biodiversity impacts of major food and biomass value chains. Together with stakeholders, we will co-develop and evaluate just and viable transformative change pathways and interventions. We will identify stakeholder preferences for a range of policy and technology-based solutions, as well as governance enablers, for more sustainable food and biomass value chains. We will then evaluate these pathways and solutions using a novel combination of integrated assessment modeling, input-output modeling and life cycle assessment, based on case studies in various stages of the nexus, at different spatial scales and organizational levels. This coproduction approach enables the identification and evaluation of just and viable transformative change leverage points, levers and their impacts for conserving biodiversity (SDGs 12, 14-15) that minimize trade-offs with targets related to climate (SDG13) and socioeconomic developments (SDGs 1-3). We will elucidate leverage points, impacts, and obstacles for transformative change and provide concrete and actionable recommendations for transformative change for consumers, producers, investors, and policymakers.
