The diet proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission has faced criticism concerning its affordability. This study aimed to investigate the cost associated with a greater alignment to the EAT-Lancet reference diet in the province of Québec, Canada. The dietary habits of 1147 French-speaking adults were assessed using repeated Wed-based 24-hour recall data collected between 2015 and 2017 in the cross-sectional PRÉDicteurs Individuels, Sociaux et Environnementaux (PREDISE) study. Diet costs were calculated using a Nielsen food price database. Usual dietary intakes and diet costs were estimated using the National Cancer Institute’s multivariate Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. Adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet was assessed using the EAT-Lancet dietary index (EAT-I). Associations between diet costs and EAT-I scores were evaluated using linear regression models with restricted cubic splines. After adjustment for energy intake, a higher EAT-I score (75th vs. 25th percentiles) was associated with a 1.0 $CAD increase in daily diet costs (95%CI, 0.7 to 1.3). This increase in diet costs was mostly driven by the following component scores of the EAT-I (75th vs. 25th percentiles, higher scores reflecting greater adherence): Vegetables (1.6$CAD/day, 95%CI: 1.2, 2.1), Free sugars (1.6$CAD/day, 95%CI: 1.3, 1.9), Fish and plant-based proteins (1.4$CAD/day, 95%CI: 1.0, 1.8), Fruits (0.9$CAD/day, 95%CI: 0.4, 1.3), and Whole-grains (0.4$CAD/day, 95%CI: 0.0, 0.8). Inversely, greater scores for the Poultry and eggs component were associated with reduced diet costs (-1.2$CAD/day, 95%CI: -1.7, -0.7). This study suggests that adhering to the EAT-Lancet diet may be associated with an increase in diet costs in the province of Québec.

Education is essential for addressing the global environmental crisis and engaging students through experiential learning is crucial. In physical education, physical literacy offers a holistic approach to sustainable education, with plogging exemplifying this integration. This study investigates the perceptions of Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) students regarding the implementation of plogging in school curricula. Using qualitative interviews with 80 PETE students and analysing responses with NVIVO 12 software, the study reveals mixed feelings about this innovative practice. Participants see plogging as valuable for fostering both physical literacy and environmental awareness. However, concerns about feasibility include the need for institutional support, curriculum flexibility and community involvement. These findings highlight the potential of plogging to enhance educational programmes by combining physical activity with environmental stewardship. The results can inform the development of future educational strategies that integrate plogging to promote sustainability and holistic student development.

While malnutrition (including both undernutrition and overweight/obesity and related non-communicable diseases) remains a persistent challenge in countries around the world, it is far from alone as a threat to human development and wellbeing – and is increasingly viewed as intersecting with climate change and environmental degradation. At the crossroads of these issues, animal-source foods (ASFs, including meat, fish, seafood, dairy and eggs) have attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for their role in diets and for their environmental impacts. Heated debate has focused on the potential benefits of reducing consumption of ASFs as well as the potential nutritional risks associated with this. ASF production also plays an important role in livelihoods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. ASFs are also central to many food cultures and traditions, highly valued by many consumers. As the issues associated with ASFs are intertwined, they must be considered jointly and with nuance. Given wide global ranges in ASF consumption, environmental footprints and malnutrition rates and types, considering equity (in terms of ASF consumption and production) is also critical. This review examines these complex issues, discussing ASFs from the perspectives of nutrition and health, environmental impacts, livelihoods and society, and equity. It also examines potential future options for reducing environmental impacts of ASFs.

It is not often that international collaborations are sustained for any significant period, let alone for three decades. However, despite relying on largely voluntary contributions of individuals within its member institutions, the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA) has not only been an example of sustained collaboration over 30 years but also an example of how an initially modest collaboration can grow and thrive. Current and former serving Chairs and secretariat of the Network have come together to review network documents and outputs and reflect on the history of INAHTA, since its inception in Paris in 1993. Building on the paper from Hailey et al 2009 that documented the growth of the network after 15 years, we have considered and documented the factors that we believe have helped sustain the network and enable it to flourish in the subsequent 15 years. We have also considered the various challenges experienced along the way, as these too can aid in making a collaboration stronger. Future directions for the network have also been contemplated, given the evolving nature of HTA and the regional collaborations that have recently emerged. We hope that by sharing the lessons learned from this living example of international global collaboration relationships between like-minded organizations can be similarly fostered and enhanced into sustainable collaborations, for the benefit of all.

In political decision-making processes in Greenland, comparisons are often drawn with Denmark, Scandinavia, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland. With Greenland as a case, this article analyses a series of aspects across the societies to highlight the politics of comparisons, which are taken for granted, and to emphasise contextual conditions. Comparisons are central to cultural meaning-making and navigation with nation building strategies. We conclude that the current comparisons are significant in terms of explaining Greenland’s challenges with a vulnerable economy and with the sustainable use of natural and human resources. To utilise local resources and create a sustainable livelihood, there is a need to break from the existing trajectories based on the current politics of comparison to explore local conditions more carefully and find other models of inspiration. By developing the concept of island operation, the article unfolds distinct characteristics of the Greenlandic socio-economic structures and includes statistical data on trade, education, and the labour market to support the identification of conditions that can contribute to future analyses of Greenland’s sustainable development. This analysis has relevance for societies that share geographical and cultural conditions with Greenland and post-colonial countries that must deal with complex path dependencies to navigate towards sustainable development.

The 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5) in 2032–2033 represents an important next step in the legacy of the oldest continuous climate research program created by humanity, which intentionally began during a Solar Maximum with IPY-1 in 1882–1883, following the Little Ice Age. Current IPY-5 planning by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is “From IPY-4 to IPY-5” with scope since 2007–2008, considering relevant large-scale polar process, international activities and UN decades. Additionally, there are essential features to incorporate into IPY-5 planning with Indigenous knowledge as well as next-generation leadership along with international science connections across the United Nations, involving core integration of data system and Earth–Sun system research, which accelerated with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957–1958 that was renamed from IPY-3. As memorialized in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty: “the International Geophysical Year accords with the interests of science and the progress of all mankind.” Importantly, at the height of the Cold War with “forever” legacy, the 1959 Antarctic Treaty became the first nuclear arms agreement, applying science diplomacy among allies and adversaries alike based on “matters of common interest.” Recognizing current challenges to enable inclusive dialogues – especially in the Arctic – planning for IPY-5 is far enough into the future to be imaginative and hopeful but close enough to be practical, especially to produce synergistic outcomes that inspire and empower next-generation leaders across the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development from 2024 to 2033. Planning “From IPY-3 to IPY-5” – this invited Cambridge Prisms Perspective extends and amplifies the IASC-SCAR concept with its visionary principles – “striving for holistic, systemic, transdisciplinary research approaches” – for the benefit of all on Earth across generations.

Competition law is experiencing a transformation from a niche economic tool to a Swiss knife of broader industrial and social policy. Relatedly, there is a narrative that sees an expansive role for competition law in broad areas such as sustainability, privacy, and workers and labour rights, and a counternarrative that wants to deny it that role. There is rich scholarship on this area, but little empirical backing. In this article, we present the results of a comprehensive empirical research into whether new goals and objectives such as sustainability, privacy, and workers and labour rights are indeed endorsed in EU competition law and practice. We do so through an investigation into the totality of Court of Justice rulings, Commission decisions, Advocate General opinions, and public statements of the Commission. Our findings inject data into the debate and help dispel misconceptions that may arise by overly focusing on cherry-picked high-profile decisions while overlooking the rest of the EU’s institutional practice.

We find that sustainability is partially recognised as a goal whereas privacy and labour rights are not. We also show that all three goals are more recent than classic goals, that EU institutions have not engaged much with the areas of sustainability, privacy, and workers and labour rights, and that the Commission’s rhetoric is seemingly out of pace with decisional practice. We also identify trends that may bode for change, and we contextualize our analysis through the lens of the history and nature of the EU’s integration and economic constitution.

Sino-Arab Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have remained elusive over two decades of increasing economic relations and trade negotiations. Nevertheless, substantial investments and trade demonstrate the Arab region’s strategic importance to China. Recent strategic drivers of China’s engagement with the Middle East have evolved from an original energy security focus, to more recently integrating technological investments into partnerships, such as artificial intelligence and renewable energy infrastructure—complicating progress towards an FTA. Such measures can help progress achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and offer economic development opportunities, but negotiations may be hindered by concerns ranging from technological dependency to trade competition. Examining opportunities and challenges in the developing China–Arab relations, the article explores legal and policy obstacles and opportunities towards securing an FTA. With a focus on recent developments in AI and sustainability partnerships, the article analyses legal strategies and international law best practices for a model FTA for Arab countries.

Sustainability practices of a company reflect its commitments to the environment, societal good, and good governance. Institutional investors take these into account for decision-making purposes, since these factors are known to affect public opinion and thereby the stock indices of companies. Though sustainability score is usually derived from information available in self-published reports, News articles published by regulatory agencies and social media posts also contain critical information that may affect the image of a company. Language technologies have a critical role to play in the analytics process. In this paper, we present an event detection model for detecting sustainability-related incidents and violations from reports published by various monitoring and regulatory agencies. The proposed model uses a multi-tasking sequence labeling architecture that works with transformer-based document embeddings. We have created a large annotated corpus containing relevant articles published over three years (2015–2018) for training and evaluating the model. Knowledge about sustainability practices and reporting incidents using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards have been used for the above task. The proposed event detection model achieves high accuracy in detecting sustainability incidents and violations reported about an organization, as measured using cross-validation techniques. The model is thereafter applied to articles published from 2019 to 2022, and insights obtained through aggregated analysis of incidents identified from them are also presented in the paper. The proposed model is envisaged to play a significant role in sustainability monitoring by detecting organizational violations as soon as they are reported by regulatory agencies and thereby supplement the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores issued by third-party agencies.