PCLM-D-25-00478

Climate-friendly, food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: a systematic scoping review of policy-related documents

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Fong,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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As you will see, both reviewers like this manuscript a lot. However, R1 has several suggestions to strengthen the manuscript, and R2 has minor revisions to suggest. I look forward to your revised submission.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 26 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Alessandro Del Ponte

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Reviewers' comments:

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1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.-->

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: I commend the authors for undertaking a timely and policy-relevant scoping review of climate-friendly food advertising and procurement policies among English local authorities. The descriptive mapping of publicly available policies is valuable and the topic is well aligned with growing interest in food systems governance and climate action. However, several conceptual, framing, and methodological transparency issues limit the strength of the conclusions, particularly given the journal’s global climate focus. While the authors acknowledge many of these challenges, their implications are not always fully carried through into the synthesis or conclusions in the manuscript.

I outline several suggestions below that I believe would strengthen the manuscript.

MAJOR COMMENTS:

1. Methods and scope constrain interpretation more than is reflected in the discussion

The study relies on publicly available documents and provides a valuable synthesis of climate-relevant food advertising and procurement policies across English local authorities. The manuscript appropriately, but briefly, notes that local authorities may pursue policy development through less public routes; however, the implications of these methodological choices are not fully elaborated in the interpretation and limitations of findings.

Because inclusion necessitates public visibility, the dataset may reflect documentation practices, political strategy, or early-stage policy development as much as actual policy activity. The inclusion of heterogeneous document types (e.g., draft policies, meeting agendas, or proposals alongside adopted policies) further complicates interpretation. For instance, might it be the case that documents from certain stages of the policy-development process are more likely to be made public than others? I encourage the authors to more explicitly discuss how these features of the dataset may influence estimates of policy prevalence, quality, and implementation status, and to temper conclusions that imply broader gaps in action.

Relatedly, the search strategy appears to foreground certain food-system policy domains (e.g., diet composition, agriculture, procurement, and waste) rather than climate- or sustainability-specific terminology, with climate relevance introduced primarily at the eligibility and screening stage. This is a defensible approach and likely enabled the identification of policies not explicitly framed as climate action; however, it may also shape which policy domains are more visible within the dataset and how “climate-friendly” actions are represented. As currently presented, the rationale for not including climate- or sustainability-focused search terms is not fully articulated, which may leave readers wondering whether this was a deliberate methodological choice or a pragmatic constraint.

I am not suggesting that the authors revise their search strategy at this stage; rather, providing a clearer justification for the search framing (particularly the limited use of climate- or sustainability-specific terminology) in the Methods section, alongside a brief reflection in the Discussion on how this approach may have influenced the types of policies retrieved and the relative prominence of certain domains, would strengthen methodological transparency and help readers interpret the scope of the findings.

2. Additional clarification on implementation and monitoring measures

The manuscript notes in the Methods and Results that policy documents were coded for implementation language, monitoring, and evaluation approaches. However, the limitations section later clarifies that included documents seldom indicated whether policies were formally approved or implemented, and that documents titled “policy” were not necessarily adopted in practice. While this is an important acknowledgment, the distinction between coding policy language about implementation and assessing actual implementation status could be articulated more clearly earlier in the manuscript.

As currently presented, readers may interpret findings related to monitoring, compliance, or mandatory language as indicators of enacted policy infrastructure, when in fact they reflect textual features of publicly available documents. I encourage the authors to more explicitly clarify this distinction, perhaps briefly in the Methods and again in the Discussion, and to reflect on how uncertainty around implementation status may shape interpretations of policy prevalence and effectiveness.

3. Conceptual framing of “climate-friendly” actions and transparency of the data extraction process

A wide range of domains are grouped under the category of “climate-friendly” and coded during the data charting process described by the authors, including policy language related to health-oriented advertising restrictions, packaging reduction, water availability, ethical sourcing, and other social criteria. While many of these actions may plausibly intersect with climate goals, the manuscript does not clearly articulate the conceptual rationale for their inclusion upfront. As a result, readers encounter explanations for some of these intersections only later in the Results or Discussion sections, which may leave them wondering earlier in the manuscript why certain domains were included. For instance, in Table 2, “water availability” and “fairtrade/ethically sourced” are listed as policy typologies, yet their definitions do not clearly articulate their relevance to climate outcomes at this stage of the manuscript.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the authors substantially restructure their coding framework or analytic categories. Rather, I suggest more explicitly acknowledging that included domains vary in their proximity to direct climate mitigation outcomes, with some reflecting more indirect environmental, ethical, or governance pathways, and briefly clarifying the rationale for including these broader domains. The cited frameworks (93 & 94) appear to draw from broader “sustainable food systems” approaches, which may encompass social or ethical dimensions beyond direct climate mitigation; briefly clarifying this distinction would help readers understand how these domains fit within the scope of a climate-focused review. Overall, this additional framing would strengthen the analytic coherence of the manuscript without requiring changes to the underlying analysis.

Relatedly, the manuscript would benefit from additional transparency around how coding domains were selected and refined. While some explanation of typology development for procurement policies appears in the Results section (e.g., noting that typologies were informed by prior literature, identified data, and practice-partner expertise), introducing this rationale earlier in the Methods would improve clarity. In particular, it would be helpful for the authors to briefly describe:

whether information domains were determined a priori (deductive), developed inductively from the data, or through a hybrid process;

how the data extraction spreadsheet was piloted and refined;

whether procurement and advertising policy coding/data extraction procedures were developed through comparable conceptual processes, given that procurement typologies appear more explicitly literature-informed; and

the conceptual reasoning for including domains that may have more indirect links to climate mitigation or adaptation (as discussed above)

To accomplish this, the authors might consider adding a brief paragraph or small subsection within the Methods outlining the decision-making process for domain inclusion and providing a short rationale for the broader set of coded policy actions. This clarification would strengthen reproducibility, interpretability, and potential transferability of the approach to other policy or geographic contexts.

4. Discussion and implications would benefit from closer alignment with review findings

The Discussion advances several forward-looking recommendations (e.g., national standards, development of climate-focused nutrient profiling models, and assertions regarding key barriers such as funding or leadership). While these ideas are important, the current study design does not empirically examine many of these claims and is constrained by limitations in understanding the true extent of policies implemented or formally adopted (see Major Comment #1). As a result, some implications appear more speculative than directly grounded in the scoping review’s findings.

For example, the manuscript suggests the development of a model analogous to the UK Nutrient Profiling Model that integrates environmental, ethical, and social impacts, but it is not always clear which specific findings from the review lead to this conclusion. Similarly, the Discussion implies that national-level policies are indicated by the findings, yet the pathways connecting local authority policy patterns to national governance recommendations could be articulated more explicitly. In particular, it may be helpful to acknowledge potential complexities — such as the possibility that local policies may offer context-specific flexibility or complementary approaches to national policy — especially given the study’s focus on local authority governance.

Additionally, some claims regarding likely outcomes (e.g., that national policies may reduce public or corporate backlash) would benefit from clearer grounding in the empirical findings or being framed more cautiously, as these dynamics are not directly examined within the scope of the review.

Overall, I encourage the authors to revisit the Discussion with a focus on ensuring that implications flow directly from the findings and are clearly situated within the methodological limits of the scoping review. Reframing certain statements as hypotheses or avenues for future research — or more explicitly tracing how particular conclusions emerge from the evidence presented — would help align the strength of the conclusions with the descriptive nature of the analysis and improve the manuscript’s internal coherence.

5. Generalizability and positioning within a global climate journal

The analysis is highly specific to the governance structures and policy context of English local authorities. Although this context is acknowledged in the manuscript, given that PLOS Climate is an international journal, it would be helpful to more clearly articulate which insights are likely to be transferable beyond England’s institutional arrangements, or alternatively to more explicitly frame the study’s implications within this specific governance context for a global readership. I suggest the authors incorporate additional framing language in the Abstract, the final section of the Introduction (e.g., the aims paragraph), and the Discussion to better situate the paper’s findings within the broader global dialogue on food systems governance.

MINOR COMMENTS:

Throughout the manuscript, there are several instances where sentence structure and punctuation reduce clarity (e.g., inconsistent formatting of examples such as “e.g.,” phrases, long list constructions, or minor grammatical inconsistencies). While these issues do not affect the substance of the work, a careful copy-editing pass to improve readability and stylistic consistency would strengthen the overall presentation.

The “Comparison with previous literature” section would benefit from more explicitly situating the study in relation to comparable policy mapping or policy landscape analyses, rather than primarily drawing on adjacent thematic literature (e.g., public support, framing, or implementation barriers). In particular, contextualising findings such as the relatively smaller number of local authorities with climate-oriented food policies compared to health-focused advertising policies within existing policy mapping work. potentially by including examples beyond England where appropriate, would strengthen the scholarly positioning of the manuscript. As currently structured, several paragraphs introduce relevant ideas but remain somewhat surface-level; developing fewer connections to the literature, but exploring them in greater depth, especially through engagement with other policy-mapping research specifically, may help the section feel more cohesive and better positioned within the existing policy-mapping literature, clarifying the manuscript’s added value to the field.

Overall, I believe the manuscript makes a useful contribution and could be strengthened through revisions that clarify conceptual framing, more fully integrate acknowledged limitations into interpretation, and align the scope of the conclusions with the descriptive nature of the analysis.

Reviewer #2: Overall, this is a comprehensive and highly detailed and rigorous scoping review of an important aspect of policy, which is growing in interest among Academic and policy practitioners. The introduction and methods are clear and easy to understand and replicate. The results section is extremely detailed offering a useful overview of the available LA food policy thinking strategies in terms of climate and environmental sustainability using two of the most powerful policy tools (advertising and procurement).

Following are a few comments which could improve the clarity and usefulness of the paper:

- The stated aim of the review is to identify climate-friendly food advertising and procurement policies. However throughout the paper the aspects of environmental and sustainability outcomes are also mentioned. As not all environmental outcomes are completely overlapping with climate (ie. Water, plastic pollution, soil quality) and some policies might not have the strongest climate impact but still positively affect environmental outcomes (i.e. organic production, packaging, recycling policies), it would be helpful to clarify how these dimensions fit into the review aim, policy search and categorisation.

- The results section is extremely detailed and outlines all policy actions and targets considered in the policy documents. However, the very length and detail of the findings might make the reading and overall key messages difficult to take in. Have you thought about summarising the results in a more visual way? For example, by sub-categorising and re-grouping the different policy actions? This would make the review more accessible to policy makers.

- In the discussion you touch on the likeliness of climate impact of the broader policy categories. Could this session be expanded and include examples of implemented policies in other countries? (i.e. Copenhagen plant-based policies including procurement) as potentially no implemented policy is available at English LAs. The Likeliness of climate impact could also be included in the conclusions/abstract together with a suggestion of which policies, based on academic literature and real life policies, should be prioritised and the discrepancy between policy focus and most effective outcomes based on current scientific knowledge.

In the abstract:

- Line 16-17: Include % of LA having developed a policy document (out of all LA)

- Line 20: Specify broad category of foods/drinks and the category of accreditation

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Silvia Pastorino

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PCLM-D-25-00478R1

Climate-friendly food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: a systematic scoping review of policy ambition

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Fong,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 13 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

As the corresponding author, your ORCID iD is verified in the submission system and will appear in the published article. PLOS supports the use of ORCID, and we encourage all coauthors to register for an ORCID iD and use it as well. Please encourage your coauthors to verify their ORCID iD within the submission system before final acceptance, as unverified ORCID iDs will not appear in the published article. Only  the individual author can complete the verification step; PLOS staff cannot  verify ORCID iDs on behalf of authors.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Alessandro Del Ponte

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

As you will see, R1 was satisfied with your revision but still has a few comments for you to address.

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Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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-->2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

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-->3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.-->

Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Re-review of PCLM-D-25-00478_R1

Climate-friendly food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: a systematic scoping review of policy ambition

I appreciate the authors' thorough engagement with my original comments. The revised manuscript is substantially improved. The majority of my original concerns have been satisfactorily addressed. Two issues require further attention before I can recommend acceptance, which I detail below.

Major Comment 1: Methods and scope constrain interpretation more than is reflected in the discussion

The additions to the Limitations section and the revised title represent appropriate reframing. I am satisfied with this response.

Sub-point: Search strategy framing

This sub-point has not been satisfactorily addressed. My original comment asked for a clearer justification in the Methods for why climate- and sustainability-specific terminology was excluded from the search string, and a brief reflection in the Discussion on how this may have shaped the findings. The authors' response indicates they consider the existing Methods text sufficient. I respectfully disagree.

The authors argue that incorporating climate-specific terminology at the search stage risked excluding relevant policies not explicitly labelled as climate-focused. I understand this logic. Searching broadly on food and procurement/advertising terms and applying climate relevance at the screening stage is a reasonable approach to capturing policies that are functionally climate-relevant but not explicitly framed as such.

However, this reasoning explains why climate terms were not used instead of food and procurement terms; it does not explain why they were not used in addition to them. A complementary search using climate- and sustainability- terminology alongside food terms would have captured a second and distinct category of documents: those developed by local authorities that frame food policy within climate action plans or sustainability strategies, and whose documents may not have surfaced prominently under procurement or advertising language alone. It would seem the absence of this complementary search layer is unexplained and potentially consequential for the completeness of the evidence base.

This gap is particularly salient for international readers, and connects directly to Major Comment 5. In other national and sub-national governance contexts, food procurement commitments are commonly embedded within comprehensive climate action or sustainability plans rather than standalone procurement or advertising policies. A reader in those contexts would reasonably wonder why these sorts of documents were not searched. Perhaps this is a function of English-authorities' organization and policymaking, but it is not clear to an outside reader that this is an established structure or norm and provides the basis for the search strategy as pursued.

I therefore maintain my strong suggestion for 2–3 sentences in the Methods search strategy section that explicitly acknowledge this as a deliberate methodological choice and provide the rationale, as well as any implications for findings in the Discussion. Whether the absence of a complementary climate-term search reflects the distinctive organization of English local authority policymaking, a pragmatic constraint given the scale of the search, or both, a brief acknowledgement of this choice is critical for transparency and for readers' interpretation of findings within the larger policy context.

Major Comment 2: Additional clarification on implementation and monitoring measures

The clarifications added to the Methods and Limitations=are clear and appropriately placed. I am satisfied with this response.

Major Comment 3: Conceptual framing of "climate-friendly" actions and transparency of the data extraction process

The addition of text explaining that LA-defined sustainability criteria guided inclusion is helpful, as is the additional detail on procurement typology development. I am satisfied with this response.

Major Comment 4: Discussion and implications would benefit from closer alignment with review findings

The reframing of forward-looking claims and the addition of more cautious, contextualised language in the Discussion represents an appropriate and proportionate revision. I am satisfied with this response.

Major Comment 5: Generalizability and positioning within a global climate journal

The authors have added brief framing language regarding international relevance (Lines 26–28 and 700–702), but the addition remains relatively gestural. Stating that "similar tensions between local innovation and the need for national coordination are evident in many countries" does not give readers enough institutional context to assess whether findings apply to their own settings.

A short description of how English local authorities relate to the central government would resolve this. This governance context is presumably what makes the authors' call for national standards logical, but it is not self-evident to readers from countries where the national-local relationship is structured differently. For example, a reader from a US municipal context, where cities have substantial procurement autonomy and fiscal independence, might reasonably wonder whether their situation is analogous.

I would suggest just a sentence or two characterizing the distinctive features of the English governance context so that international readers have the scaffolding to assess transferability.

Minor Comments

The copy-editing pass and revisions to the Comparison with Previous Literature section are adequate. I am satisfied with these responses.

Recommendation: Minor Revisions

I am supportive of publication following these targeted revisions. The two additions I have requested (a stronger rationale for the search strategy in the Methods, and minor additions to support international contextualisation in the Discussion) are modest in scope but support integrity and reach of the paper. I do not anticipate needing to re-review the manuscript following these revisions.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Climate-friendly food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: a systematic scoping review of policy ambition

PCLM-D-25-00478R2

Dear Dr Fong,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Climate-friendly food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: a systematic scoping review of policy ambition' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Alessandro Del Ponte

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The authors have satisfied the remaining comments. Congratulations on a great article!

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):