Abstract Summary
The transition towards more sustainable food systems is essential for achieving climate targets and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving goal 12, responsible consumption and production, in particular, will require changes in consumer behavior, the adoption of sustainable practices by suppliers, and, most importantly, the implementation of policies that foster such sustainable behaviors. Whether it is the availability of supply or the increasing demand that drives sustainability transient consumption is often discussed in economic circles. From the complex systems perspective, it is their interaction that matters. This article explores how consumer preferences and restaurant menus co-evolve to contribute to a more sustainable food system and how this co-evolution is affected by different policy instruments. We use a spatially explicit agent-based model of the catering industry in Amsterdam as a case study. The model is built using spatial microsimulation to expand on survey data from a discrete choice experiment about restaurants in Amsterdam. We observe that in the absence of policy interventions, it takes quite a lot of time for changes in diet patterns to occur. Multiple cities are working on their sustainability. Based on the generated insights, we expect our research to contribute to the current debate on the policy interventions to achieve sustainable urban food systems and the SDGs, and to be of consequence across multiple cities worldwide.
