Plant-powered progress: transforming food systems for a cooler planet, with Professor Paul Behrens

This week we are delighted to welcome Professor Paul Behrens to the Nutshell.

Paul is a British Academy Global Professor based at the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford where his research focuses on the impacts of food system transformations. 

His research and writing on food and energy systems, land use and climate change has appeared in scientific journals and media outlets and he is the editor and author of the textbook  ‘Food and Sustainability’.

As an academic with a background in Physics, Professor Behrens is an environmental expert, and he combines this expertise with a communication style that is accessible to all in his book ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science’ which we discuss in this episode.

To buy the book:

https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/PaulBehrens

To connect:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-behrens-6b586427/?originalSubdomain=uk

Links to further information discussed in this episode:

https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-health-diet-and-you/

https://en.fvm.dk/Media/638484294982868221/Danish-Action-Plan-for-Plant-based-Foods.pdf

https://www.carbonbrief.org/cropped/

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/author/zacharyboren/

https://www.ft.com/susannah-savage

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/arthurneslen

https://www.food.systems/

https://foodfoundation.org.uk/publication/meat-facts

https://foodfoundation.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-05/TFF_Meat%20Facts.pdf

https://foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/broken-plate

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2514664525000104