TRUE COST ACCOUNTING (TCA)

What are the true costs of diets on the society and on the planet?

To create an environment that enables healthy and sustainable food choices, it is first necessary to understand the current impacts of diets and food systems on the environment, society, and human health.  

True Cost Accounting (TCA) is a novel approach to holistically analyse the hidden costs of food systems (called “externalities”), thereby identifying effective strategies for reducing these hidden costs. 

With a systems approach as its foundation, TCA avoids the trade-offs often associated with more siloed approaches (e.g., improvements of crop production through extensive use of fertiliser without consideration for human health or environmental contamination).  

For the first time, TCA is being applied to diets—thereby revealing the costs generated by natural, social, and human capital impacts. Negative impacts—and hidden costs—must be reduced in order to shift to sustainable, healthy, fair, and cost-effective diets. 

Defining effective, holistic food systems interventions and policies poses significant challenges. Hence TCA will play a key role by: 

  1. measuring and comparing environmental, social, and health impacts;
  2. enabling policymakers to understand the range and magnitude of food system impacts and identify priority intervention areas; 
  3. identifying pathways for transformational change in government, business, farming, and consumer contexts.
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