Please note there are many new papers and case studies now available at the
Linking Worlds website. 


Think big. Go small 

A Short Guide to Sustainable Agriculture  The Sustainable Food Lab and Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) collaborated on development.

The intention of this booklet is to give an easy understanding of sustainable agriculture and its main issues. It will be useful particularly for people curious about the business case for sustainable agriculture. 

 To view a PDF of this guide click here.
To order copies of this guide click here.

The Changing Vocabulary of Food Purchasing: a Guide for Foodservice Professionals.

Initially created by a collaboration between SYSCO, Unilever, US FoodService, Rainforest Alliance and WWF this guide provides relevant information about terminology in production, processing, preparation, serving and marketing of food. 

A PDF of this guide is available here.
Place your order for Guides here.

Operationalizing Sustainability in Value Chains

Chapter 1:  Why we need Metrics and why Metrics are Dangerous, 
Chapter 2:  Food and Agriculture Sustainability Metrics

Jon Johnson, University of Arkansas and Sustainability Consortium, Hal Hamilton, Sustainable Food Lab, Peter Senge, MIT and SoL

 Report on Food Company Sustainability Commitments, August 2009

Comparison of Three Biogeochemical Process Models for Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Effects of Agricultural Management

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Papers

2008

• Renewable Energy Prospects in Haiti's Nord-Est Department, Rosalie Ray, Judith Cardell, Smith College, October 2008.
• Literature Review of Methods and Tools for Quantifying the Indirect Environmental Impacts of Food Procurement, produced for Clean Air-Cool Planet, September 2008.
• Agrifood Industry Transformation & Small Farmers in Developing Countries, Reardon, T., C.B. Barrett, J.A. Berdegué, and J.F.M. Swinnen. Forthcoming. World Development, International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Techonology for Development. September, 2008.
• Yesterday’s dinner, tomorrow’s weather, today’s news? US newspaper coverage of food system contributions to climate change, Roni A Neff, Iris L Chan and Katherine Clegg Smith, Center for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, July 2008.
• Corporate Social Responsibility in the Agri-Food Sector: Harnessing Innovation for Sustainable Development. Report prepared for the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, March 2008.

2007

•  The Language of Power and the Language of Love, by Adam Kahane in Reflections, SoL Journal on Knowledge, Learning and Change, Vol 8 no. 3, 2007
• Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) released a new report on the initiatives taken by over a hundred U.S. hospitals to source healthier and more sustainably produced food for patients. The Healthy Food in Health Care report details actions taken by 127 facilities in 21 states, June, 2008.
• The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) published a paper on, Trading Practices for a Sustainable Coffee Sector, Context, Strategies and Recommendations for Action by Jason Potts and others, 2007
• Assessing Smallholder Participation in the French Bean Supply Chain in Guatemala (The Juan Francisco Project). A CIAT report, October 2007.  

Earlier

• Not While I'm Eating: In 2005 Cultural Logic and the FrameWorks Institute investigated why and how Americans manage to remain blind to the processes of food production and distribution. In work commissioned by the W.K.Kellogg Foundation and as part of the Sustainable Food Lab, they looked into patterns of thought in order to find more effective ways of communicating (see Cognitive Analysis). The result was  For more on this topic see:
• Commodity Systems Challenges: Moving Sustainability into the Mainstream of Natural Resource Economies. A Sustainability InstituteReport, April 2003

Books

• Peter Senge, long time friend and colleague and author of the The Fifth Discipline and other bestselling books, has come out with a new book, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Ae Working Together to Create a Sustainable World. The book reveals the revolution already underway in companies around the world creating an alternative to "business as usual" tactics. The Food Lab is featured repeatedly throughout the book, as one of the epicenters of innovation helping to move this revolution forward.
• Earthscan has just published a new book written by Kevin Morgan and Roberta Sonnino,  The School Food Revolution and the Challenge of Sustainable Development,