Beyond the Plate: Sustainable Approaches to Food and Food Systems
Green Templeton Human Welfare Conference 2025
Monday 19 May 2025 09:00 to 18:00Location: |
Green Templeton College |
This is the 17th Human Welfare Conference, which has been organised annually by graduate students at Green Templeton College since 2008.
This year, we explore food sustainability across multiple levels—personal, local, and global—while fostering interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary interactions among students, grassroots organisations, and senior researchers.
Our keynote speakers, Dr John Ingram (Food Systems Transformation Group, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute) and Dr Peter Scarborough (Sustainable Healthy Food Group, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) will each deliver lectures on food systems and sustainability, focusing on global and national approaches. Graduate students will deliver talks about their prominent research and there will be a Friendly Food Fair with the college kitchen, community-based organisations, and local social enterprises.
Complimentary lunch and refreshments are provided throughout the day. Please note the ticket price is a deposit, refundable on the day upon attendance (£5 refund, excluding a small transaction fee).
Direct questions to Sunjin Uhm
RegisterSchedule
| 9:00-9:15 |
Registration |
Reception |
| 9:20-9:30 |
Opening speeches: College Principal, Chair of HWC Committee |
Abraham Lecture Theatre |
| 9:30-10:30 |
Keynote Lecture: Dr John Ingram‘Transforming Food System Outcomes for Health, Environment and Enterprise: A Food System approach to identifying who has to do what’ |
Abraham Lecture Theatre |
| 10:30-10:50 |
Icebreaking workshop |
Abraham Lecture Theatre |
| 10:50-11:10 |
Break |
Stables Bar |
| 11:10-12:30 |
Student Research Talks‘Quantifying the Environmental Footprint of Packaged Foods at Scale: A Multi-Country Analysis’ — Shruti Jain‘The Environmental Impacts Committed from Ongoing Capital Investments into Meatpacking Plants in the USA’ — Stephanie Walton‘Tikuna Agrifood Transformation in the Amazon Basin: Reviving Recipes, Reinventing Autonomy, Reimagining Prosperity’ — Youyi Xie‘Growing Solutions: Scaling Cooperative Agriculture for Improved Wellbeing’ — Samantha Landsman |
|
| 12:30-13:20 |
Lunch |
Stables Bar |
| 13:30-14:30 |
Keynote Lecture: Prof. Peter Scarborough‘Taking the heat out of the kitchen: diet policy for public health and environmental sustainability’ |
Abraham Lecture Theatre |
| 14:30-15:45 |
Friendly Food Fair (details below) |
Stables Bar |
| 15:50-17:00 |
Panel DiscussionKim Samuel (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative; Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness)Keren Papier (NDPH Fellow and Senior Nutritional Epidemiologist)Claire Gray (Health Improvement Practitioner at Oxfordshire County Council) |
Abraham Lecture Theatre |
| 17:00-18:00 |
Closing Ceremony |
Common Room |
Speakers
Dr. John Ingram, Associate Professor at Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment and Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College. Trained in soil science with a DPhil from the University of Reading, John brings decades of international experience in food systems research and policy. In his keynote “Transforming Food System Outcomes for Health, Environment and Enterprise”, John will share a systems-based framework for identifying who needs to act—and how—to create more sustainable, resilient food systems.
Dr. Pete Scarborough, leader of the Sustainable Healthy Food Group at Oxford, presents “Taking the Heat Out of the Kitchen: Diet Policy for Public Health and Environmental Sustainability,” asking if public health policy can cool down the planet?
Student Research
Can cooperative farming reshape our cities? MSc researcher Samantha Landsman investigates community-driven agriculture in Cape Town in her talk “Growing Solutions: Scaling Cooperative Agriculture for Improved Wellbeing”.
What are the hidden costs of beef? Stephanie Walton, a financial geographer at Oxford, uncovers the environmental and economic consequences of ongoing investments into meatpacking in the US in “Investments into Meatpacking Plants in the USA”.
What’s in your food—and what’s its environmental cost? Shruti Jain brings cutting-edge machine learning and supply chain data to estimate product-level impacts worldwide in “Algorithm for Global Supply Chain”.
What can the Amazon teach us about sustainable food futures? Youyi Xie shares powerful insights from Indigenous Tikuna women leading agrifood transformation in Colombia in “Tikuna Agrifood Transformation in the Amazon Basin”.
Friendly Food Fair
FEAST
FEAST (Horizon Europe funded project – 35 partners representing 15 European countries) aims to ensure that all people in Europe can easily eat delicious, healthier and more sustainable food. Current food systems across Europe operate in a ‘Lose-Lose-Lose-Win’ model that sees only large food corporations ‘winning’ at the expense of enormous negative consequences for the environment, health and the public sector. FEAST will work to improve food systems by leveraging current best practice and co-designing novel solutions that catalyse a just transition to healthier and more sustainable dietary behaviour – at all levels (micro, meso and macro) and in all sectors (producers, distributors, retailers and consumers) of the food system.
Oxford Farmhouse
Oxford Farmhouse makes juices and cider from apples & pears that are donated from across the area, and would otherwise go to waste. The pressing is done by the local community, including people from Farmability (adults with autism and learning difficulties), and men from Edge Housing (ex homeless) as this forms part of their rehab. Local schools visit us to help the children learn about food production and where their food comes from. Christ Church asked us to look after an old orchard of apple trees. Groups who help us to tend the trees includes the Oxford University Nature Conservation Society and Abundance Oxford.
Tap Social Movement
Founded in 2016, Tap Social Movement is an Oxford social enterprise brewery, bakery, and hospitality organisation that provides training and employment for people from prison. To date it has created more than 100,000 hours of paid, meaningful work for prison leavers, and today approximately one-third of its team has lived experience with the UK’s criminal justice system. Tap Social brews a multi award-winning range of modern, accessible beer distributed across the UK and served at its four Oxfordshire community venues. It was named “Consumer Facing Social Enterprise of the Year” at the national Social Enterprise UK Awards.
Oxford Mutual Aid
Oxford Mutual Aid (OMA) is a community-led local food justice organisation, which provides weekly and emergency food parcel deliveries direct-to-door for ~1000 people each month. Founded during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, OMA has evolved into a key aspect of OMA’s aid infrastructure, estimated to have supported 1.1% of Oxford’s population in the past year. OMA does not means test, believing individuals are themselves best at judging their needs, and primarily stocks its parcels through rescued surplus/would-be waste food from local shops, businesses and organisations
Tropical Agricultural Association International
Tropical Agriculture Association International Tropical Agriculture Association International – Supporting Sustainable Agriculture for Development is a dynamic, global network of active professionals and practitioners who recognise the central role of environmentally, socially and economically sustainable agriculture and agrifood systems to economies and livelihoods in developing countries. Our members include farmers, managers, natural scientists, environmental scientists, ecologists, social scientists, economists, policy makers, and agri-entrepreneurs from countries worldwide. Our key objective is to bring together those seeking knowledge, advice, services, and products relating to sustainable agricultural development with those able to provide them. Members benefit from access to grants to support developing country research, an on-line journal, mentorship opportunities, an honours and accreditation scheme, a structured facility for matching suppliers of goods or services with market demand, and an active programme of lectures and discussions on relevant topics.
Call for posters
We are receiving posters that will be displayed during the event, offering a platform to share your exciting research and insights. We will print the posters for you. Please submit information about your research to alexandra.viloriatejada@gtc.ox.ac.uk.
