ETH Global Lecture Series: From Farm to Fork: A Sustainable Approach to Eating
12 May 2023 - The connection between human and environmental health is increasing in public dialogue. How do we choose between food which is good for us and food we enjoy? Can it be both? What is the right balance between nutrition and pleasure? These are important questions as we consider our collective future.
The ETH Global Lecture Series offers a platform for contemporary global topics to be discussed with outstanding global thinkers. We bring amazing people together to discuss their personal insights, experiences and expertise. In addition to simply learning, our goals are to broaden our perspectives of a contemporary issue so we can all broaden our thinking, challenge our opinions and through this, make a meaningful contribution to issues we are working on.
From Farm to Fork: A Sustainable Approach to Eating: a Lecture with Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider
The connection between human and environmental health is increasing in public dialogue. How do we choose between food which is good for us and food we enjoy? Can it be both? What is the right balance between nutrition and pleasure? How is it possible to provide tasty, healthy, and nutritious food products to our growing global population? How can we create a supply chain which is robust and environmentally regenerative? These are important questions as we consider our collective future.
Speakers
external pageMark Schneider, CEO Nestlé
Chris Luebkeman (moderator)
Mark Schneider
Mark Schneider became Nestlé’s Chief Executive Officer in January 2017. Together with the company’s 275,000 associates in 188 countries, he strives to enhance quality of life through the power of food with Nestlé’s 2,000+ brands. Mark has worked with Nestlé’s Board and executive team to sharpen the company’s strategic focus on high-growth categories like coffee, pet care and nutritional health products. He has supported the company’s innovation efforts to bring new products even faster to market. Mark is actively engaged with the team in exploring healthy, delicious and nutritious products and enjoys trying new samples himself. As part of its longstanding sustainability efforts, Nestlé committed to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050. On this path to a low carbon future, Mark is particularly passionate about the just transition to a regenerative agriculture and the support for farming communities in Nestlé’s supply chain. Prior to Nestlé, Mark was CEO of the Fresenius Group from 2003 to 2016. Mark has a graduate degree in Finance and Accounting and a doctoral degree in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He also holds an MBA from Harvard University. Mark was born and raised in Germany. He became a U.S. citizen in 2003.
Prof. Dr. Eva-Marie Meemken
Eva-Marie Meemken is an assistant professor and group leader of ETH’s Food Systems Economics and Policy Group in the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS). She holds a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Göttingen and was a postdoc at Cornell and Minnesota and an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen.
Her group conducts applied research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reduce the social footprint of food systems, focusing especially on hired labor and lower-income countries. Her research is published in both general interest journals (Science, Nature, PNAS) and top journals in the field.
Dr. Chris Luebkeman
Chris Luebkeman is the leader of the Strategic Foresight Hub in the Office of the President at ETH Zurich. This recently establish Hub is a team which engages a broad range of stakeholders concerning future focused drivers of change. His multidisciplinary education ranges from geology, civil engineering, structural engineering, entrepreneurship and a Doctorate in Architecture. His journey included Vanderbilt, Cornell and the ETH Zurich.
He became an academic gypsy teaching Studios on Design and courses on Technology at the University of Oregon, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at the MIT. He joined the global engineering consultancy Arup in London to lead the Research and Development group in 1999.