Food for Health Symposium Provides Pathways to Take Bold Climate Action
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Saskatoon (September 20, 2023) - Today, the national Nourish Food for Health Symposium kicks off in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with an opening keynote speech from Climate Activist and Emergency Physician, Dr. Courtney Howard. A central theme at this year’s Symposium is acknowledging that food and health care systems are enormous contributors to the climate crisis, but that they are also a timely $4-billion opportunity in Canada that cannot be ignored with the climate alarm bells ringing louder than ever.
“The intersection of environment and health is a powerful sweet spot where our efforts can yield outsized positive impacts on our lives now and into the future,” said Dr. Courtney Howard, ER Physician and globally recognized expert on climate change and health. “Using health system procurement to increase local, plant-rich food for patients and provide a stable market to support Canadian farmers can enhance national food security in a way that decreases our vulnerability to climate change-amplified crop challenges while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate disruption. It’s a tasty win-win for people and planet,” Howard continued.
“Nourish is supporting the health sector to leverage their purchasing power and make a public commitment to take bold climate action," said Jennifer Reynolds, Co-Executive Director of Nourish. “Updating menus, reducing food waste, and shifting to plant-forward ingredients that heal is an untapped opportunity for our health care systems to help mitigate climate change. We are recruiting hospitals around the country to commit to the Coolfood Pledge to achieve science-based targets to reduce the climate impact of the food they serve by 25%. Our ambitious goal is to be working with 100 hospitals by 2025 in order to have a significant impact on helping Canada to meet its climate targets.”
Nourish offers free resources including the Sustainable Menu Guide and Values-Based Procurement Primer to support health care facilities to take climate action by embedding planetary health principles to ensure environmental sustainability and climate resiliency in their daily practices. With early adopters already taking action in Canada, Nourish is witnessing the true power that transforming food in health care can have, and how changing one small thing can lead to scalable and lasting change.
The Food for Health Symposium also includes land-based experiences with event co-hosts CHEP Good Food and Saskatchewan Health Authority as well as workshops around the interconnectedness of climate action, Indigenous foodways, and food prescribing.
Nourish invites health care leaders to get in touch and make the commitment to planetary health today. Learn more here.
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Nourish empowers health care to embrace food as medicine to advance health equity, climate action, and community well-being. We work to harness the untapped and neglected power of food in health care to transition to food and health systems that build health for patients and the planet
Saskatchewan Health Authority is the largest organization in Saskatchewan, employing more than 40,000 employees and physicians. Together, we are responsible for the delivery of safe, high quality health care for the entire province.
CHEP Good Food For over 30 years, CHEP Good Food has operated within a capacity building
model, working with children, families, and communities to improve access to good food and promote food security so that we can achieve our vision of a food secure community..
Media Contact: Lana Brandt, Communications Manager
Phone: 778.833.2954 Email: lbrandt@nourishleadership.ca
Click here for the 2023 Symposium Electronic Press Kit.