AUTHOR=Smith Julie P. , Borg Bindi , Iellamo Alessandro , Nguyen Tuan T. , Mathisen Roger 

TITLE=Innovative financing for a gender-equitable first-food system to mitigate greenhouse gas impacts of commercial milk formula: investing in breastfeeding as a carbon offset

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1155279

DOI=10.3389/fsufs.2023.1155279

ISSN=2571-581X

ABSTRACT=•	Women’s contributions to food production and food security are often overlooked, thus perpetuating inequitable and unsustainable globalised commercial food systems.
•	Women’s role as producers in the first-food system, breastfeeding, is largely invisible, and underfunded, encouraging the production and consumption of environmentally unsustainable commercial milk formula (CMF). 
•	This policy brief highlights opportunities for including and funding interventions enabling breastfeeding under carbon offset schemes such as the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).  
•	A Green Feeding Tool is being developed to account for the national carbon and water footprints of CMF.
•	The tool will help ensure that women’s contributions to a sustainable ‘first-food system’ is not ignored by the CDM and other mechanisms funding greenhouse gas emissions reductions.