Sustainability Excellence Associate and Sustainability Excellence Professional Sustainable Food Systems, Diets & Food Loss: practice questions

1 · Food system frameworks and drivers · medium

Which pair correctly matches a food system driver category with an example, in the HLPE grouping?

1. Biophysical: trade agreements and agricultural subsidies
2. Socio-cultural: soil degradation and water scarcity
3. Political and economic: traditions and gender norms
4. Demographic: urbanisation and population growth

2 · Sustainable and healthy diets: planetary health diet and critiques · medium

What daily amount of red meat does the EAT-Lancet reference diet suggest, with its range?

1. About 100 g per day, range 50–150 g
2. About 14 g per day, range 0–28 g
3. About 50 g per day, range 25–75 g
4. Zero, with no range permitted

3 · Food loss and food waste: definitions and measurement · medium

Under the UNEP Food Waste Index, which destination is NOT counted as food waste?

1. Diversion to animal feed
2. Landfill
3. Anaerobic digestion
4. Composting in municipal plants

4 · Food loss and food waste: definitions and measurement · hard

Why does ranking wasted foods by environmental impact rather than mass change priorities?

1. Vegetables have larger footprints per kg than meat, so mass understates them
2. Environmental impact is always proportional to mass, so the ranking cannot change
3. Animal products weigh less than wasted vegetables but carry much larger footprints per kg
4. Mass-based rankings already include greenhouse gas emissions by definition in the FLW Standard

5 · Reducing food loss and waste: interventions along the chain · medium

A retailer cuts its own reported waste by cancelling orders at short notice. Why is this not a genuine reduction?

1. The surplus shifts to the supplier, who then has to dump or downgrade the food
2. Cancelled orders are counted twice in the retailer's own waste inventory
3. Cancelled orders always raise the retailer's energy use for refrigeration
4. The FLW Standard forbids any retailer from changing its order quantities after contracts are signed

6 · Packaging and its trade-offs · easy

For high-impact foods such as meat and cheese, how does the climate footprint of packaging usually compare with that of the food?

1. Packaging is the largest share
2. Packaging and food are always equal
3. Packaging is a small share of the total
4. Packaging has no footprint at all

7 · Packaging and its trade-offs · hard

Why can banning plastic wrapping on some fresh produce increase total environmental impact?

1. Unwrapped produce must always be air-freighted to reach shops in time
2. Plastic wrapping absorbs carbon dioxide and so has a negative footprint over its whole life
3. Unwrapped produce cannot legally be sold in most countries
4. Shorter shelf life raises food waste, whose footprint exceeds the packaging saved

8 · Food security, nutrition and sustainability trade-offs · medium

According to FAO's State of Food and Agriculture 2023, the largest share of the quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems came from:

1. Greenhouse gas emissions from fertiliser manufacture only
2. Losses of farm income caused by low commodity prices on world markets
3. Costs of plastic packaging litter in the oceans
4. Health costs of dietary patterns linked to non-communicable diseases

9 · Alternative proteins: evidence on footprints · medium

Which protein option has the lowest environmental footprint in most comparative studies?

1. Cultivated meat
2. Plant-based burger analogues
3. Farmed shrimp
4. Pulses such as lentils, beans and peas

10 · Food system transformation pathways · medium

According to Springmann and colleagues (2018), what is needed to keep the food system within environmental limits?

1. Technological improvement alone, since diets cannot change in time to meet the 2050 boundaries
2. Dietary change alone, since production is already sustainable
3. A combination of dietary change, technological improvement and food loss and waste reduction
4. Food waste reduction alone, since it removes all excess demand