Disclaimer: Calm down carnivores. This was not a session suggesting banning all meat consumption. Not all consumption is environmentally catastrophic; it depends on consumption levels, treatment of animals, feed (pastures vs. grains), etc. Still, in industrialised countries, meat consumption levels are unsustainable.

Arriving at the event, we were met with a lunch buffet largely consisting of salmon, beef, and chicken. Not a promising start. Thankfully, before long we had great speakers taking the time to discuss the fundamental questions: what determines lifestyle choices? And if unsustainable, what can institutions do to positively change these?

I had first been posed the question of individual choice in high school. In a workshop about identity at the University of Michigan, the facilitator asked participants to write down the % your decisions you believe you control. I wrote 75%, erring on the low side sensing that it must be a trick question, and aren’t I so smart for not writing 100%? The facilitator, however, wrote something like 5% or less. SHOCK!

And indeed the panellists echoed these sentiments. One explicitly said: “It is impossible to look at consumers as sovereign actors.” Carolyn Steel, author of Hunger Cities, explained the role of cities in influencing society, i.e. one definition of cities could be "places where people generally don’t produce their own food." It’s transported in, creating a cultural invisibility of food, making unsustainable and unjust decisions easy.

And what can institutions do to alter behaviour positively? Indeed, as Carolyn well articulated, “the most unpopular policy you could ever have are telling people what they can and can’t eat”. But as the situation now stands, governments do not currently have control of the food supply – corporations do, and this is a problem. The panellists recommended that the single most effective measure a government can take is to give visibility to the fact that your health and the planet’s health are linked.

What do you think: what determines lifestyle choices?

And if unsustainable, what can institutions do to positively change these?

And how will this impact developing countries, as prosperity rises?

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Shirley Ma is a research analyst in Amman, Jordan and contributor for G-1Billion She is writing from Copenhagen.

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