Changes in production and consumption of foods offer a great potential for improved environmental sustainability and public health. However, transition towards diets which promote healthy foods with minimal environmental impact requires scientific methods that can support evidence-based policy decisions and recommendations. Dietary quality scores are suggested as a methodological framework to assess nutrient density of food products and diets which allows for combined assessments where the environmental impact of food products is expressed relative to the nutritional value.

This presentation will focus on existing methods to evaluate combined environmental and health effects of food products and discuss implications of methodological choices on sustainability performance. The role of dairy in a sustainable diet will be discussed by providing examples of how dairy products are ranked compared to other food groups when a combined nutritional and environmental perspective is applied.