Dietitians for Climate Action: DLSPH alumni fight climate change through food
August 10/2026
Anneke Hobson and Renita Lam founded Dietitians for Climate Action to help fellow dietitians connect healthy eating with healthy options for the planet.
By Ishani Nath
Eating healthy can also be healthy for the planet — that’s a lesson DLSPH alumni Anneke Hobson and Renita Lam (MPH, 2017), founders of Dietitians for Climate Action, learned while completing DLSPH’s Master of Public Health (MPH) in Nutrition and Dietetics. And as consumers see the growing impact of climate change reflected in grocery store supplies and prices, this lesson has never been timelier.
“Public Health faces two substantial, complex challenges: the health impacts of a changing climate and increasing rates of chronic disease. Interventions that can effectively address both should be prioritized,” says Hobson.
The connection between climate change and dietetics
Anneke Hobson
Hobson and Lam have both had a longstanding interest in sustainability. So, as DLSPH students, when Assistant Professor Eric Ng presented their class with an opportunity to do group projects focused on sustainable diets, Hobson and Lam jumped at the chance. “At that point, I didn’t really have a sense of what a sustainable diet is based on research evidence. I just was really drawn to it,” says Hobson. “And when we dug into the research, I was like, this is so much more interesting than I thought it was.”
One third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from our food. Certain foods, like red meat, solid dairy and farmed shrimp, are responsible for a greater share of those emissions. A sustainable diet prioritizes foods that are healthy and nutritious but also have a low environmental impact.
After digging about the connection between food and climate change in Ng’s classroom — like the methane gas emitted by cattle and sheep or farmed shrimp’s sizeable carbon footprint — Hobson was motivated to learn more.
During her MPH practicum at Toronto Public Health, Hobson co-authored Diets for a Cool Planet: Healthy, Sustainable Diets for Toronto highlighting healthy, sustainable, low-carbon diets. The report highlighted research indicating Ontarians don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. It also noted that Canadians, on average, eat more meat than they need.
“Plant-rich diets are aligned with health benefits, like preventing certain chronic diseases–that just seems so clear,” says Hobson. “There’s a good public health case and a good environmental case to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and help people eat better.”
Dietitians for Climate Action
Beyond the MPH program, Hobson and Lam weren’t seeing education or training opportunities on dietetics and climate change. “I just didn’t see anybody connecting those two things in a way that seemed like enough,” says Hobson “There’d be the odd paper or call to action, but it wasn’t building momentum to fully integrate dietetics and climate action.”
Renita Lam
Having identified this gap, Hobson and Lam joined forces to start a platform for climate-friendly dietetic practice. Dietitians for Climate Action aims to position dietitians as “key partners in climate action.” The organization offers webinars, educational resources and a course for dietitians on climate-friendly practices.
“In my practice, I saw first-hand what happens when you don’t include dietitians in the conversation when it comes to climate solutions,” says Lam, who is also a registered dietitian. “Around the time when the media was releasing articles on plant-based eating for climate change, I saw an influx of clients who had recently transitioned to a plant-based diet but were also experiencing nutrient deficiencies as a result of climate-friendly diets being oversimplified to ‘just stop eating red meat.’ Yes, eating for the climate and eating for human health can often go hand in hand, but it’s not a given! This is something dietitians know, but it’s not necessarily common knowledge for the average person reading a news article promoting plant-based eating.”
Through Dietitians for Climate Action, Hobson and Lam work with practitioners to help integrate sustainable options into dietetics. For instance, dietitians working directly with patients can learn environmentally friendly options, such as swapping steak for mussels or clams if a client is low in iron, or teaching them how to cook with lentils for protein. For dietitians working within organizations like hospitals, Hobson and Lam might help them find ways to reduce food waste and the frequency that meat is on the menu, maybe serving beef a couple times a month instead of every week. And for dietitians working in public health settings, these DLSPH alumni help colleagues consider the environmental impact of policy.
Creating sustainable change
Hobson says change comes down to small steps that can have a big impact.
“Whether you move towards a more plant-rich diet or take stock of how much food you waste at home, taking a step that can be sustainable for you in the long run, and also sustainable for the environment, is going to be the best way of taking stock of your own relationship with food,” says Hobson.
As climate change and its impact on our food supply continues to evolve, so does Hobson and Lam’s practice.
“Food-related solutions are the top two most impactful strategies for tackling climate change. And some of the main nutrition messages around climate-friendly eating are things most dietitians learn in our programs, but it’s important to continue educating yourself in this area (beyond just plant-based eating) as more people become interested in climate-friendly diets and turn to dietitians for advice,” says Lam.
And with the increasing impacts of climate change being felt across the globe, Hobson and Lam say dietitians have an opportunity to build a healthier, more sustainable future.
“Dietitians across the board can have a very big impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from food and food systems,” she says. “It’s just not currently being harnessed.”