RAINFOREST D5.3 - Lessons learned from the quantification of the pathways

There is growing consensus that transformative change is needed to achieve futures in which biodiversity, climate and socio-economic goals agreed under UN conventions (Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals) are met. However, there is limited understanding of what transformative change entails for food and biomass value chains, and how this could differ based on alternative value perspectives about justice and human-nature relationships. Following recommendations from the IPBES Transformative Change assessment, the RAINFOREST project addressed this gap by developing and quantifying the “Value-explicit transformative and equitable pathways in Food and Biomass Systems” (VITAL-Paths-Food pathways), a set of three plausible and value coherent pathways designed to meet global biodiversity, climate and human well-being goals, and reflecting contrasted views about justice and nature. By supporting a more transparent account of the values underpinning pathways of transformative change and their impacts for multiple competing value perspectives, this work is expected to help overcome existing tensions about ambitious and fair collective action in food and biomass value chains. This report documents the methodological approach to the quantification of the VITAL-Paths-Food pathways, the analyses of the resulting projections in terms of efforts and impacts, and the lessons learned for transformative change in European food and biomass systems within the global context. The quantitative projections, as well as the code to generate related figures in the deliverable (Figures 1-32) are available in the supplementary dataset (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18788047).