
Helen Harwatt Food & Climate Policy Fellow
Helen Harwatt is an environmental social scientist, with a focus on food systems shifts and their contribution to climate change mitigation goals. Helen’s current projects focus on assessing the impacts of food systems shifts on a range of issues around environmental sustainability, public health, and ethics, to identify pathways toward creating food systems that minimize adverse environmental impacts, maximize public health benefits, and address ethical issues.
Prior to joining HLS, Helen spent three years developing the environmental nutrition research program at the Loma Linda University in California, and seven years at the University of Leeds’s Sustainability Research Institute in the UK, conducting research on climate change mitigation focused on consumers, businesses, and governments, and as an affiliate of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Centre for Low Carbon Futures. Helen won an international award from the International Transport Forum for her PhD research, which focused on the potential to meet climate change mitigation targets through a personal carbon trading scheme in the UK. Helen also runs the consultancy group Planet Friendly Food.
Below you can see a selection of news related to Helen’s work with the Program, and media stories in which she has been mentioned or quoted.
Media Coverage

January 16, 2023 Have we reached ‘peak meat’? Why one country is trying to limit its number of livestock
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November 07, 2020 World cannot meet toughest climate targets without eating less meat, study says
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October 12, 2020 For plant-based nutrition, the time is now and it must be locally driven
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September 15, 2020 In-depth Q&A: What does the global shift in diets mean for climate change?
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September 07, 2020 The carbon opportunity cost of animal-sourced food production on land
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December 14, 2019 Move over, peak oil. Scientists say “peak livestock” must arrive this decade to limit global heating
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