World Environment Day 2026: Climate Action Starts on Our Plates

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta – 5 June is observed as World Environment Day. This year's theme, "Climate Action," highlights the urgent signals the Earth is sending and the signals we choose to send in response.

Our food choices are among the "signals we choose to send back" to Earth. Choosing sustainably produced foods, reducing food waste, and adopting climate-friendly diets can help lower emissions and build a more resilient food system.

In the program "The Insight: Healthy Planet, Healthy Plates" broadcast on Friday, 5 June, Prof. Tharanga Thoradeniya, Director of the Center for Planetary Health in Sri Lanka explained the connection between food systems, environmental sustainability and human health.

“When the soil is healthy, we know that the food grown in it carries more nutrients. When farmers aren't forced to use excessive chemicals like pesticides, those chemicals will not end up in our bodies, our food, or our rivers. Therefore, the health of the planet and the health of our bodies are not two separate stories,” she said.

Food choices affect not only our health but also the environment. By choosing real food over highly processed foods, we contribute to environmental protection.

Eating packaged and processed food contributes to packaging waste, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions from food processing and transportation.

However, people in several major cities, including cities in Asia, are now experiencing dietary changes due to industrialization and environmental changes. One of the speakers, dr. Nishal Kaur Dhillon, a public health and sustainability activist, said that these changes cause health and environmental problems.

"This is changing our way of eating. There has been an increase in metabolic obesity, in diabetes, type 2 diabetes, in hypertension. There is an increased risk because of what we eat today. We eat packaged food, something that comes in plastic," Dhillon stated.

Meanwhile, Anita Rentauli Gultom, Project Management Office of Indonesia's Health Ministry revealed that Indonesia has a national health policy that recognizes nutrition outcomes depend not only on food availability. Another important factor is the quality of the environment in which the food is prepared, produced, distributed, and consumed.

"Now food issues are currently one of our national development priorities. The government believes that we are not only focusing on increasing food production, but also ensuring land availability, food distribution, food safety, and healthy food consumption," she stated.

The health of the planet and the health of people are deeply connected. What we eat, how food is produced, how it is marketed, and how it reaches our communities all matter.

As we mark World Environment Day, let us remember that protecting the planet also means protecting our health and building healthier food systems is one important step toward a healthier future.