Advertising in local authority-owned assets

Food and beverage advertising impacts public health by influencing individuals’ dietary attitudes, preferences, purchasing and consumption [21–25]. Though there is less recent evidence specifically for climate-damaging foods, previous studies have demonstrated a positive association between advertising of beef and its purchase [26], demand [27], and consumption [28], and reduced willingness to make dietary changes to avoid meat [29].Guidelines published by the UN Environment Programme recommends the regulation of advertising of high-carbon foods such as meat, dairy products and certain types of fish [30].

LAs have powers to enact policies to influence what is advertised on LA-owned advertising assets which vary by location and contract but include bus shelters, digital screens, and billboards. In the UK, outdoor advertising reaches 98% of the population at least once a week [31] and in a sample of 1,552 adults in England, 85% reported exposure to advertising for foods and drinks high in fat, salt and/or sugar (HFSS) in the past seven days [32]. National government has the power to restrict advertising content across all advertising sites in the UK (e.g., tobacco advertising restrictions), but to date, national policies on food advertising have been slow to implement and limited in scope. For example, the UK government’s only restriction on HFSS outdoor advertising was brought in 10 years after the government’s TV restrictions and only restricts adverts 100 metres around schools [33]. In the absence of robust national measures, LAs ability to change advertising in their local areas presents a significant opportunity for encouraging the consumption of sustainable and healthy food. Cities in the Netherlands and Australia have already started to propose this policy option [34–39].

In England, current evidence indicates that 24% of local councils have an advertising policy that mentions the restriction of less healthy foods [40]. LA policies that robustly restrict outdoor advertisement of certain food products such as HFSS products have been demonstrated to be highly feasible to implement [41] and associated with a 6.7% relative decrease in average weekly purchases of energy from HFSS products [25]. Therefore, this suggests that restricting the advertisement of food products with a high environmental impact may have the potential to reduce diet-related environmental impact. To date, the extent to which advertising policies that aim to promote climate-friendly diets has not been systematically explored and documented.

Food procurement by local authorities

Food procurement refers to the “entire process of purchase, subsidy, provision, distribution, preparation, service and sale” of any foods, beverages, ingredients, meals or snacks [42]. Food procurement policies can apply to many local government settings, such as schools, hospitals, childcare facilities, correctional facilities, and council workplaces [42]. Examples of such policies include sourcing local, seasonal, and organic produce; limiting the number of servings of meat [43], and the requirement of accreditations or standards for specific products (e.g., Marine Stewardship Council certification). The UK Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto set a target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards [44]. Evidence suggests that policies applied to public food procurement can be useful for promoting sustainable and healthy diets [45] since they are low-agency and reach a large population [42].

A 2022 report published by advocacy organisation, Sustain, which analysed published climate action plans, biodiversity plans, and food strategies, identified 109 LAs with a sustainable procurement policy and of these, only 44 included food [46]. However, in England this analysis did not include metropolitan boroughs or district councils. We are not aware of research that has systematically explored climate-friendly food procurement policies and characterised them at the local government level in England.

Policy development processes in England LAs

In England, the development of policy at LA level theoretically follows a few standard processes, which will vary depending on factors such as policy topic, departments involved and political willingness. In brief, a policy is presented to relevant local authority decision-making boards where it is either approved or rejected by board members. If approved, the policy is adopted, and the process of policy implementation can begin. Over time, the policy should be monitored, reviewed for adjustment as required and independently evaluated. Throughout this process, different policy-related documents are produced, some of which are made public. The policy development process and associated documents are shown in Fig 1.

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Fig 1. The basic policy making process in English LAs.

Relevant documents associated with the various stages in this process are shown in the red boxes.

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As this is a nascent area of policy, with few fully developed examples to date, learning from policy-related documents across the spectrum of policy development, including board meeting minutes, and draft policy proposals would enhance our insights into policy intent, political momentum, and how climate-friendly actions are being operationalised within councils, even before formal policies are adopted.

Aim

The aim of this scoping review was to systematically identify and characterise publicly available, climate-friendly food advertising and procurement policies at any stage of development within LAs in England. This is a descriptive study that did not aim to critically analyse or interrogate the quality of the policies and related documents. We did not aim to formally assess their potential to be implemented and achieve impact.

Eligibility criteria

Eligible documents were grey information related to a policy at any stage of the policy development process, such as policy documents, policy motions, meeting agendas, cabinet meeting reports and policy appendices. As there is no consensus on the definition of a ‘policy’, we included documents with titles that included but were not limited to ‘policy’, ‘standards’, ‘frameworks’ and ‘guides’ providing they contained as a set of specific principles, programs, statements, or actions, directly related to the topic of interest [10–12,48]. As this area of policy is relatively novel and we were interested in LAs’ current interpretations of sustainable food/food systems, we included policies that LAs themselves deemed to promote food sustainability, rather than imposing researcher-defined criteria for inclusion in the review. Identifying such policies was guided by the context of the document containing the policy. For instance, if the document was titled, “sustainable procurement policy”, researchers surmised that the food-related actions within aimed to promote sustainability. Eligible documents pertained to policies that: related to food or the food system; were at any stage of the policy development process; were developed by an English local authority; focused on outdoor advertising or procurement; were framed by the local authority as directly or implicitly promoting environmental sustainability; were publicly available; and published after 1 January 2014.. A 10-year publication cutoff date (from point of searching) was applied for practical reasons and to ensure the relevance to current policy debate of included policies. Documents with a broad, aspirational or vision-setting focus [48] e.g., ‘5-year action plan’ [10] were excluded. This decision reflects our focus on operational policy instruments that have a direct implementation function, rather than high-level planning documents that outline intentions or goals across multiple sectors. Documents in which the climate change, environment or sustainability impact could not clearly be attributed to food or isolated from other advertising or procurement domains, such as generic high carbon or polluting products, were excluded. Documents describing sponsorship policies only and without reference to advertising were also excluded. Documents that exclusively listed food procurement actions relating to the UK National Government Buying Standards [49] were excluded, since these are organised at the national not local level.

Document sources

Searches were conducted between 9^th August and 19^th December 2024. The websites of all local governments in England (n = 317) [50] were searched using key terms: “advertising”; “adverts”; “bus shelters”; “billboard”; “screen”; “ban”; “procurement”; “Food OR produce OR nutrition OR diet OR meat OR vegetarian OR vegan OR flexitarian OR plant-based OR organic OR fruit OR vegetables OR agriculture OR farm(-ing) OR waste AND policy OR strategy OR plan OR action OR partnership OR procedure”. For Google searches the search terms included “*council name* advertising policy”; “*council name* food advertising policy”; “*council name* procurement policy”; “*council name* food procurement policy”. Full details of the search strategy are reported in the S2 Table. We prioritised search terms focused on procurement and advertising language, and not climate- or sustainability-specific terminology, as our study aimed to examine policies that shape food procurement and advertising practices irrespective of whether they are explicitly framed as climate or sustainability policies. Running complementary searches using climate or sustainability terms would have substantially increased workload and the volume of results, with a high likelihood of duplication, which may have exceeded what could be feasibly managed within the study’s resources. Searches of LA websites were supplemented with Google searches. For local governments where no climate-friendly food advertising and/or procurement policy was identified by website and Google searches, the MySociety central database of climate action plans was searched [51]. Finally, the Plant Based Councils website was searched to find any further publicly available documents [52].

Selection of documents

One reviewer (LSR) screened up to the first 50 results for searches on government websites and Google. In the absence of abstracts as with systematic reviews of scientific literature, the titles of results were read. If deemed potentially relevant, the full document was independently screened by two reviewers for inclusion (LSR and MF) using the eligibility criteria. Any discrepancies in decisions were resolved through discussion between the two reviewers, and a third reviewer (HF, RW, FB) was consulted if consensus could not be reached.

Data charting process

A data extraction Microsoft Excel (version 2402) spreadsheet was developed and piloted by two independent reviewers (LSR and MF) prior to data extraction. The following information was extracted: Local government name; type of local government; link to document; target of intervention (advertising or procurement); document name; date published; date signed off (if available); implementation status (developed, implemented, evaluated, other); start date of policy implementation; policy aim (health and nutrition, environment, sociocultural, economic, other [53]); whether there was an explicit statement of the anticipated impact(s) on climate/ environment/ sustainability outcomes (Yes/No); verbatim text of the climate-friendly food policy; if justification or rationale to climate change was presented (Yes/No); whether evidence was cited in policy documents (Yes/No); processes described during the development of the policy; description of how policy impact is evaluated/ monitored/ measured. The date of document publication did not necessarily equate to the policy sign off date or to the start date of policy implementation. Where an LA had multiple documents, the date from the most ‘official’ document was used. Where an LA had multiple identified documents included for a policy domain, if at least one of the documents was coded as a “yes” for a “yes/no” variable, this was considered as a “yes” for the LA. Data extraction for specific domains (policy aim and climate-friendly food policy text) was completed independently in duplicate by three reviewers (LSR, MF, SB). For the remaining domains, data extraction was completed independently by one reviewer (LSR) and checked for accuracy and completeness by a second reviewer (MF, SB). To assess the extent to which the policy was mandatory, the terms “must” and “mandatory”, and phrases indicating unequivocal rejection of non-compliant advertising applications by LAs were categorised as “mandated”. Where other terms were used this was categorised as “non-mandated/ unclear/ not specified”. This categorisation was informed by guidance from legal professionals and online sources as no existing framework was identified [54,55]. Importantly, all coding of extracted data was based on textual features of the included documents. The presence of data on monitoring, compliance or mandatory language does not confirm that policies were formally approved, enacted, or implemented in practice.

Policy typologies.

The need for overarching procurement policy typologies became apparent when extracting data on the numerous and heterogenous policy actions. Policy typologies were developed and informed by previous literature [56,57] (Table 1). Categories for the setting in which policies were applied were informed by the expertise of practice partner (RW). For the purpose of this review, the following categories were used: council contracts and tenders; council hosted events (e.g., civic events, councillor events, events in council premises); council hosted meetings (e.g., council meetings, catered internal council meetings, annual full council meeting, full council meetings); council run sites (e.g., leisure centres, cafes, parks); schools. The development of typologies for advertising policies was not deemed necessary given the relatively small number of these identified.

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Table 1. Procurement policy typologies and definitions of climate or environment focused actions within them.

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Synthesis of findings

Findings were tabulated against each LA and overall, per variable, and accompanied by narrative synthesis. The synthesis is presented under the two overarching policy domains of interest, advertising and procurement.

Characteristics of included documents

The searches identified a total of 377 documents (157 = Council website searches; 173 = Google searches; 42 = MySociety Database; and 5 = Plant Based Councils website). Of these, 36 documents (8 advertising; 27 procurement; and 1 advertising and procurement) from 27 councils (9% of total LAs) were included (Fig 2). The eight included climate-friendly food advertising-related documents were: Policy document (n = 3) [58–60]; Meeting report (n = 4) [61–64]; and Meeting agenda (n = 1) [65]. The 27 included climate-friendly food procurement-related documents were: Policy document (n = 13) [66–78]; Guide or guidelines (n = 3) [79–81]; Meeting report (n = 3) [82–84]; Policy motion (n = 2) [85,86]; Standards (n = 2) [87,88]; Report (n = 3) [89–91]; and a Draft policy document (n = 1) [92]. The one combined advertising and procurement document was a meeting agenda [93]. Of the 27 councils with an included document, four had a climate-friendly food advertising policy only, 22 had a climate-friendly food procurement policy only, and one had a combined advertising and procurement policy. Thus, in total, five LAs had a climate friendly food advertising policy and 23 LAs had a climate friendly food procurement policy.

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Fig 2. PRISMA Flow Diagram.

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Characteristics of policies

Table 2 presents a summary of the characteristics of the identified climate-friendly food advertising and procurement policies. Climate-friendly food advertising policies were identified in three regions of England (East = 2, 40% [59,62,63,65]; London = 2, 40% [58,60,61,64]; South West = 1, 20% [93]). Climate-friendly food procurement policies were identified in all regions, except the North West and West Midlands. The region with the most LAs that had a climate-friendly food procurement policy was the South East of England (n = 7, 30% [67,72,74–76,81,83,84,87]). For procurement policies, the LA type with highest and lowest frequency were District Councils (n = 9, 39% [75–77,81,84–86,90–93]) and Metropolitan Districts (n = 2, 9% [69,80]), respectively. The date of publication was transparent in all (n = 5, 100% [58,61–65,93]) LA’s advertising policies and 15 LA’s (65%) [69–71,75,77,80–91,93] procurement policies, with most advertising (n = 4, 80% [58,61–64,93]) and most procurement policies (n = 9, 39% [69,70,75,81,82,85,86,90,93]) published between 2023–2024.

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Table 2. Characteristics of identified climate-friendly food advertising and procurement policies.

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Advertising policies

Climate-friendly food advertising policies were identified for five LAs [58–65,93]. Two policies proposed restrictions on advertising certain products explicitly for environmental purposes. A policy motion put forward by North Devon Council aimed to restrict the advertisement of meat and dairy products [93]. However, another identified document revealed that this motion was lost following a vote [94]. The Cambridgeshire County Council meeting agenda included recommendations for the Council to consider publishing an advertising strategy that considers environmentally damaging products (including industrially farmed animal products) in the context of the Council’s net zero strategy [65].

The other three advertising policies were health-related policies that restricted the advertisement of foods deemed “unhealthy”, “Junk food”, and HFSS and made tangential references to potential environment benefits [58–64]. For instance, Havering Council’s policy included banning the advertisement of formula milk and stated that breastfeeding provides “environmental benefits” [61]. The other two LAs [62–64] mentioned the environmental impact of banning HFSS. Peterborough stated that there would potentially be a “positive impact” on carbon emissions due to decreased purchase and consumption of HFSS products and this would address climate change [62,63]. Tower Hamlets referenced the exploitative nature of HFSS products, and the potential environmental damage posed by heavily packaged, highly processed foods [64].

All five LAs included a description of where the advertising policy applied. For example, North Devon stated that the policy would apply to “advertising in any space where the council has influence to do so” [93]. The remaining four LAs described that the policies would be applicable to council assets and/or estates with some councils including specific examples such as roundabouts [65] and street furniture and billboards [58,61].

Procurement policies

Table 3 provides a summary of the policy types and actions outlined in the identified procurement policies from 23 LAs. Overall, the most common policy type was sourcing of food (n = 22) and within this type, the most common policy action was sourcing food locally (n = 20). The most frequent setting that policy actions were applied to was council contracts and tenders. Tables 4–8-8 present further details about the policy types by LA. Only those LAs with relevant policy actions in their policy documents were included in the corresponding tables.

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Table 3. Summary of climate-friendly food procurement policy actions and the settings in which they apply.

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Changing availability of food offered (n = 14).

Of the 23 LAs with a procurement policy 14 (61%) included an action relating to changing food availability (Table 4). The most common action within this category was increasing the provision of plant-based options (n = 11; 48%) [68–70,75,77,79,85,86,89–93]. Only one LA specified the proportion of plant-based food to be provided, with this LA stating that “where reasonably appropriate” in 2023, 25% of food at civic events would consist of plant-based options, increasing to 50% in 2024, and 75% in 2025 [90]. Also, catering at Annual Full Council meetings would consist of 50% plant-based options in 2023, increasing to 75% in 2024 and 100% in 2025 [90]. Targets were conditional on whether the plant-based options were consumed at events and were cost-neutral for suppliers [90]. Another LA specified that menus at Council events and Council run-sites aim for 50% of options being plant-based [92]. Other actions to increase the provision of plant-based options included providing plant-based milk alternatives at Council events, with oat milk being preferred due to its “low environmental impact” [69]. One LA included a statement rather than an action (see Table 4) [79]. Another LA only stated that school “menus are planet friendly” [82]. Consequently, this policy was not included in this section as there was not sufficient detail to code the policy action. Increasing the provision of plant-based options was applied to a variety of settings, with the most frequent setting being council contracts and tenders (n = 5) and council hosted events (n = 5).

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Table 4. Changing availability of food or changing menu options in climate-friendly food procurement policies.

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Providing only plant-based options was included in seven (30%) LAs’ procurement policies [69,81,84–86,90,92,93]. The policy action was applied to council events (n = 7) and council meetings (n = 5). The limiting or reduction of animal-based products was included in three (13%) policies. One LA specified that beef and lamb products would not be procured and that the amount of pork would be reduced at civic events [90]. Another LA stated that they would seek to “encourage reductions in overall meat consumption” [71], but did not provide details of how this would be achieved. A further LA specified that menus should aim for only 50% dairy, fish and meat options at council events and council run sites [92].

Five (22%) LAs mentioned meat-free days in their policies [68,70,75,80,89,93], with two LAs describing meat-free day(s) on school menus [80,93] and three LAs using meat-free days as example climate-friendly initiatives [68,70,75,89] but did not provide further detail on its application or implementation.

Sourcing of food (n = 22).

Almost all LAs with a procurement policy included actions concerning food sourcing (n = 22, 96%) (Table 5). The most frequent action relating to the sourcing of food was sourcing food locally (n = 20; 87%) [67,69,71–75,77–89,91–93]. Two LAs specified geographical boundaries for local sourcing; Leeds City Council described local produce as from “Yorkshire” and the “surrounding counties” [80], while another described local as “British” products [77]. This policy action applied to a range of settings, with council contracts and tenders being the most common (n = 9).

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Table 5. Sourcing in climate-friendly food procurement policies.

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The procurement policies of 11 (48%) LAs included sourcing seasonal food [69,71,74,76–79,81,84,87–89,92]. Of these, two [87,92] explicitly specified UK seasonality and two described designing menus to reflect the natural growing or production period for the UK [77,79]. This policy action applied to a variety of settings, with council contracts and tenders the most common setting (n = 6).

The procurement policies of 11 (48%) LAs mentioned sourcing organic food [67,72,73,75,77–81,83,87,92]. While most LAs simply mentioned generic sourcing of ‘organic food’, two LAs mentioned obtaining accreditation for specific organic products including meat and dairy products [87] and products sourced from outside the UK [73]. One LA specified specific organic versions of milk, yoghurt and flour [78]. This policy action was most often applied to council contracts and tenders (n = 7), although a variety of settings were described by LAs.

There were 12 (52%) LAs that mentioned the sourcing of Fairtrade or ethically sourced food products [66,71,73,74,77–81,87,88,91,92]. Of these, six LAs specified products, such as tea, coffee, sugar, spices and tropical fruits, or stated products that cannot be sourced locally or from the UK or EU [71,73,77,79,87,88,92]. One LA did not explicitly refer to specific foods within the Fairtrade section of its policy but did mention ensuring that food is sourced “ethically” [81]. This policy action most often applied to council contracts and tenders (n = 9).

Eight (35%) LAs referred to sustainable sourcing of food and produce [67,72,74,75,81,83,85,90], with most applying this policy action to council contracts and tenders (n = 6), but without a clear definition of sustainability. One LA defined sustainable sourcing as ‘embracing the values of projects that promote sustainability’ [74]. Two (9%) LAs [77,79] included reference to the avoidance of products that cause habitat destruction or degradation. Both LAs referred to avoiding the use of palm oil unless it is sustainably produced, in council contracts and tenders.

Standards/Accreditations (n=16).

Of the 23 LAs with procurement policies, 16 (70%) included actions relating to standards or accreditations for procured produce (Table 6). The specific details contained within these standards or accreditations were not extracted unless they were explicitly stated in the document included in this review. The most frequent action in this category was standards or accreditations for both meat and dairy products (n = 12, 52%) [70–75,77,78,81,83,87,88,92] and fish products (n = 12, 52%) [66,67,70–75,78,79,83,87,88,92]. For meat and dairy products, seven LAs [70,71,73,74,77,78,81,88] specified standards, such as Red Tractor or RSPCA Farm assured, or “equivalent”. One LA [87] included a list of relevant accreditations, specifying a minimum number that contracts must hold and four LAs [72,75,83,92] did not specify particular standards and instead described actions such as avoiding “unsustainable farming practices” or purchasing meat and dairy products from sources with “good animal husbandry”. For fish products, seven LAs specified standards, such as Marine Stewardship Certification or “equivalent” environmental accreditations, and the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries [66,71,73,74,78,79,88,92]. Five mentioned not purchasing fish from the ‘fish to avoid’ or ‘fish most at risk’ list, or purchasing from the ‘fish to eat’ list published by the Marine Conservation Society [70,71,78,87,88,92]. Three LAs [72,75,83] did not specify standards and stated, “avoiding unsustainable fishing practices”. This policy action applied to a variety of settings, but the most common setting was council contracts and tenders (n = 6).

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Table 6. Standards/Accreditations in climate-friendly food procurement policies.

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Ten (43%) LAs mentioned requirements or specifications for eggs [70,71,73,74,77–79,81,87,88,92], with seven LAs specifying free-range eggs [71,74,77–79,81,87,88]. The remaining three LAs’ egg specifications were Red Lion [70], cage-free [73] and purchased from sources with “good animal husbandry” [92]. Council contracts and tenders were the settings in which this policy action was most applied (n = 6).

Eight (35%) LAs included any other standards, accreditations, or certifications [66,68,70,74,78,80,87,89,92]. Six of these LAs mentioned the Soil Association/Food for Life Scheme [66, 68, 70, 74, 78, 87, 89] in various ways. For example, one LA [87] based their standards on this accreditation; one LA used the accreditation standards to create menus for school children [74]; another LA [78] stated that they will champion the standards as catering contracts are renewed; one used it as an example of an appropriate environmental accreditation [66]; and two specified the scheme as a requirement for food suppliers or caterers [68,70,89]. Several LAs also mentioned accreditations such as LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) and Rainforest Alliance. Other accreditations mentioned by LAs included Green Accord [92] and LA specific accreditations, such as the Bristol Eating Better Award (BEBA) [68,89]. Also, one LA stated that “Tender documents may include animal welfare where applicable” [80].

Information & Nudging (n = 6).

Six (26%) LAs included policy actions relating to information provision and nudging. Of these, five [80,85,87,90,92] provided information, for example, by displaying information about the food provenance [87], the climate and health benefits of plant-based food [85,90], and the carbon impact of food [80]. One LA also ensured that certified organic food is labelled and that where local suppliers are used this information is displayed [92]. The most frequent setting this policy action applied to was council hosted events (n = 3) (Tables 4 and 8). Four LAs’ policies involved adapting choice architecture [85,90,92,93], such as showcasing plant-based options [85,90]. Some LAs also specified how plant-based options would be showcased such as by placing such options higher up on menus [92,93]. This policy action was mostly applied to council hosted events (n = 3) (Table 7).

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Table 7. Information & Nudging in climate-friendly food procurement policies.

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Waste management (n = 14).

Of the 23 LAs with a procurement policy, 14 (61%) included actions relating to waste management as related to food consumption (Table 8). Of these, 12 LAs included food waste minimisation actions [68,75,77,79–82,86,87,89–93], such as by requesting that contractors or suppliers indicate or include plans detailing how food waste will be minimised (n = 4; [68,75,77,87,89]) stating that efforts should be made to reduce food waste (n = 4; [68,80–82,89]); recycling food waste or the provision of food recycling facilities (n = 2; [68,77,89]); only ordering the amount of food required or confirming attendance (n = 2; [79,91]); using suppliers who donate leftover food (n = 1; [79]); using ingredients from local food surplus organisations (n = 2; [86,93]); and monitoring portion sizes (n = 1; [92]). This policy action most often applied to council contracts and tenders (n = 6).

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Table 8. Waste Management in climate-friendly food procurement policies.

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Ten (43%) LAs included actions relating to food packaging [68,70,76,77,79–81,87,89,91,92] such as by requesting that contracts or suppliers indicate or include plans detailing how food packaging waste will be minimised [68,87,89]; using recycled packaging for food [68,70,89]; minimising the use of food packaging and single-use products, such as by avoiding the use of disposable cutlery and plates or freshly preparing the food on the premises [76,77,79,92]. This policy action was mostly applied to council contracts and tenders (n = 7).

Strengths and limitations

We have presented the strengths and limitations here to highlight important caveats to aid the reader’s interpretation of our discussion. Our review provides novel insights into the types of climate-friendly food procurement and advertising policies developed at the LA level in England. Including documents from across the policy development process including motions provided an understanding of the types of policies that are under consideration by LAs, even those that are yet to be adopted. A strength of the review is the application of rigorous, PRISMA methodology including duplicate and independent document screening, data extraction and coding. Another strength is the high level of detail reported in this review; we extracted data on specific policy actions contained in included documents, providing information that is highly relevant to real world practice and policymaking. We also reported on the setting in which policy actions were applied, the level of obligation and compliance monitoring, allowing us to gauge their potential environmental impacts. Our work also benefited from close collaboration with practitioners working in food advertising and procurement policy spaces in the UK (FB and RW). Being able to draw on their expertise, experience and professional networks facilitated well-informed coding, synthesis and interpretation of the data, enhancing the trustworthiness of our findings.

One of the main limitations of this review was the inclusion of publicly available documents only. There may be advertising or procurements policies that were not identified through our searches. The inclusion of publicly available policies only means that we cannot determine what is happening “behind closed doors” in LAs and limits our ability to confidently determine actual policy activity. Likewise, while including documents such as draft policies and meeting agendas allowed us to explore the types of policies under consideration by LAs, their inclusion does not necessarily indicate real-world policy action. Another limitation was that included documents seldom indicated whether policies were formally approved or implemented, and evidence of compliance or mandatory language did not necessarily indicate policy enactment. Readers should be aware that documents titled ‘policy’ in this review are not necessarily adopted or implemented. Sourcing this information would require direct contact with LAs, and we would anticipate a far shorter list of resultant policies. As only one reviewer conducted the searches and initial screening of documents, there may be a higher risk of selection bias. This was a pragmatic decision due to the considerable amount of time it took to complete the searches. Ensuring that all the identified documents were screened in duplicate reduced the risk of bias, and review findings were discussed and reviewed iteratively with the research team. Lastly, we did not use climate- or sustainability-related search terms to identify documents for inclusion in this review. As a result, eligible procurement and advertising policy documents embedded within broader climate or sustainability strategies may have been inadvertently missed; although several such documents were identified in our searches. This may have implications for the completeness of the evidence base. It may not be appropriate to replicate this search strategy in other countries and jurisdictions where procurement and advertising policies are mainly embedded within larger climate or sustainability plans, rather than standalone documents.

Comparison with previous literature

We identified relatively few publicly available food advertising and procurement policies with a focus on climate. Prior research mapping unhealthy food advertising policies identified comparatively more health-related policies in England (24% of LAs) [40]. While there are a growing number of English local governments announcing health-related advertising policies, This may be due to a current lack of precedent for climate action in this domain, since policy diffusion theory suggests that action by one LA might encourage others to learn from and emulate comparable actions [95]. The specific policy actions contained within the procurement and advertising policies and policy proposals varied substantially. For advertising, only two of the five advertising policies identified included the restriction of animal-based food products; the other three made tangential references to the exploitative and environmentally damaging nature of HFSS products. Currently, there is no government-backed tool for categorising climate-friendly and climate damaging foods as there is for healthy and unhealthy foods [96], which makes it difficult for policymakers to comprehensively define a climate-focused food advertising policy.

The 23 climate-friendly food procurement policies included in this review varied significantly in scope, addressing a variety of priorities related to environmental impacts, as well as other ethical and social issues. The most popular procurement policy actions related to local sourcing and increasing plant-based options. This aligns with findings of previous work examining local government policies developed by signatory cities of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact finding that the most common diet-related practice was sourcing of food [57,97] followed by promoting greater intake of plant-based items. Policies that aim to increase plant-based food and drink options and reduce intake of animal-derived products have the most potential to promote planetary health [98]. In contrast, local sourcing, including sourcing of high environmental impact products such as meat and dairy, is unlikely to make a meaningful impact on emissions as processing, transport, retail, and packaging only account for a small share of GHG emissions [99,100]. Likewise, actions to reduce processed food for environmental gain may even contradict scientific evidence, i.e., products like soft drinks have relatively low environmental impacts. In the current study, policies aiming to increase consumption of plant-based items were generally restricted to local authority events and meetings. Although this lays important groundwork and serves a test-bed for policy action, the impact of these smaller-scale actions on environmental outcomes is likely to be limited. Implementing these actions in settings where food is served to larger populations on a recurring basis, e.g., school dinners, has greater potential to have a meaningful impact of GHG emissions [101,102].

As found in previous research, policies restricting procurement [57,97] and advertisement of animal-derived products featured less frequently in the current review. Such policies may be avoided by LAs for fear that they inflame political debate and face strong opposition from groups concerned for the livelihoods of livestock farmers [103]. A recent UK study using survey and citizen jury methods found strong evidence of support for the principle of greater regulation of advertisement of high-carbon products [104], which might embolden LAs to take such actions in future. However, this study explored support for high-carbon products generally and did not specifically explore views on high-carbon foods such as meat and dairy. LAs could also consider how to frame procurement and advertisement policies relating to animal products, since this is also likely to influence public support. A referendum choice experiment conducted in 2,800 German citizens found that support for a tax on meat had more support if the tax was justified by animal welfare compared to climate action [105]. Understanding the role of framing on public and political support for climate-friendly food policies, particularly in a local context, is a priority for future research.

While we did not conduct a formal analysis of policy quality, the data collected suggest that the quality of climate-friendly procurement policies varied significantly. While some policies included highly specific, actionable detail (e.g., proportion of meals to be plant-based at specified council-run sites), clear statements of obligation and measures of compliance, these were lacking in others. This is similar to the Every Mouthful Counts report conducted by advocacy organisation, Sustain, whereby 59% of councils surveyed were deemed to have ‘inadequate’ plans to tackle food emissions, while 29% had a ‘basic’ plan [46]. Policies that lack clear and specific actions risk a gap between the stated policy aims and actual implementation, and, therefore are likely to make little effect compared to a fully-specified policy that has greater scope for instigating demonstrable change [11]. Therefore, caution is advised if considering developing a policy based on those presented in this review. Since we only included publicly available documents, it is feasible that such specification is available within councils (e.g., through Freedom of Information requests), as has been found in other work [40,46]. While placing policy-related documents in the public domain may enable more comprehensive research and peer learning, we acknowledge that LAs may take less public routes to policy making for strategic reasons; transparency may hamper policy progress, especially if the policy seeks to curb the influence of commercial activities [106]. Also, weaknesses in policies such as a lack of detail or compliance measures may be a symptom of the wider policy-making infrastructure and resource. In the absence of national policy, LA-level policies are developed by small teams who may lack the support and resource to develop fully specified, implementable policies, as well as the power to address national or multinational corporations and established norms. Previous research has highlighted cases where coherence across national and local government can support sustainable food policy action [97].

Implications and future research