Alternative proteins: Progress, pitfalls and possibilities
Alternative proteins: progress, pitfalls and possibilities
Cleo Verkuijl
Date: Thursday 13 November, 16:00
Location: Oxford Martin School, Seminar Room 1 and online
Join us for a talk from Cleo Verkuijl, Stockholm Environment Institute, on alternative proteins.
Title: Alternative proteins: progress, pitfalls and possibilities
Abstract: In this talk, Oxford Martin School Visiting Fellow Cleo Verkuijl will present key insights from a 2023 UNEP assessment on the environmental, health, social, and animal welfare implications of alternative proteins, which she co-led alongside former IPCC and IPBES Chair, Bob Watson. The talk will also examine the technical, social, and political hurdles facing the alternative protein transition - including questions of equity and justice - and consider the opportunities for scaling alternative proteins in ways that support sustainable, healthy, and inclusive food systems.
Cleo Verkuijl is a Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, US and a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School. Her research focuses on legal and political dimensions of international climate policy, just and healthy dietary transitions, and animal health and welfare. Cleo has led several multidisciplinary research projects on One Health and just transition approaches to food systems transformation. She was a coordinating lead author of the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) 'What's Cooking' Frontiers report, on the potential of novel meat and dairy alternatives. Cleo also served as coordinating lead author on the first two Production Gap Reports. Produced by leading research organisations and UNEP, this is the first assessment of the gap between Paris Agreement targets and countries' planned coal, oil, and gas production.
A team leader and writer for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin for over a decade, Cleo has closely followed a range of UN negotiating processes, with particular expertise in international climate change and biodiversity governance and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She has taught environmental law and policy as an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, and as a tutor for the University of Edinburgh. In 2023-24, she was a visiting research fellow at Harvard Law School's Animal Law and Policy Programme. Cleo has also worked from UNEP in Brussels, and was a policy officer with the NGO network Climate Action Network International during the Paris climate negotiations. She holds an LL.M. in Global Environment and Climate Law from the University of Edinburgh.
