Configurations of leverage points for the deliberate acceleration of ideal-type transition pathways in the EU food system

Abstract

The complexity of the EU food system poses a significant challenge to the transition towards sustainable and healthy food consumption, as interdependent factors reproduce stable social structures that resist change. The concept of leverage points (LPs) helps identify strategic intervention points to stimulate system change. However, focusing on individual LPs often entails trade-offs between transformative feasibility and depth. Moreover, existing LP approaches tend to overlook the long-term co-evolution of interrelated social structures. To address this gap, we connect LP categories to mechanisms that accelerate progress along four transition pathways that predict potential future dynamics. We apply this synthesized framework to expert focus group data, demonstrating how specific LP configurations can deliberately accelerate system transitions. Taking innovations as entry points, we identify LP configurations that support the upscaling and spreading of these innovations throughout the system. Our findings suggest that blending deep and shallow LPs may help to overcome system inertia. Nonetheless, multiple, co-existing transition pathways across diverse subsystems may be required to fully confront the scale and urgency of sustainability and health challenges in the EU food system.