In this issue

Welcome to the latest edition of Just Food’s digital magazine.

With Covid-19 and the Ukraine conflict competing for the attention of governments and business, it’s important the planet doesn’t lose sight of the climate crisis. 

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published just days after Russia’s forces crossed the border into Ukraine, leaving the IPCC’s analysis and warnings vying for headlines. It received much less coverage than it otherwise would. 

In a similar vein to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine underlines how the need to tackle the climate crisis can come under pressure from shorter-term emergencies. The conflict’s impact on the trade in key food commodities have led some in Europe, for example, to ask whether climate targets or policies need to be trimmed back in response to the global turmoil. 

The horrors in Ukraine have shaken the world but climate change is not going away. Moreover, the developing food security problems sparked by the conflict only serves to remind us of the link between food security and the climate emergency. 

In this issue, we dig into what the food industry is doing to tackle emissions, its efforts on plastic and weigh up the thorny question of how food companies balance sustainability with growth. 

Dean Best, managing editor