Challenges and opportunities for integrating climate action into school feeding: Insights from the Global Survey of School Meal Programs

School meal programs are a powerful tool to address malnutrition and support education, though their potential to contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation is less understood. This study addresses that gap using an innovative data resource: the 2024 Global Survey of School Meal Programs conducted by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation. This survey, the most comprehensive and standardized of its kind, collected detailed information from 127 countries, with national respondents providing program-level information on school food procurement, food waste, packaging, cooking energy sources, and program responses to environmental stressors. Our findings show that environmental sustainability is increasingly embedded in school meal programs worldwide. Around 81% of the school meal programs implement food waste reduction measures, and 79% take steps to reduce food miles through local procurement or support for local agriculture. Among programs relying on wood or charcoal stoves, 72% have adopted strategies—primarily energy-efficient stoves—to reduce firewood use and deforestation. Yet very few programs utilize solar energy for cooking, and just 38% target climate-friendly foods that are purposefully suited to a changing climate. Notably, both low-income countries and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate strong sustainability practices, while higher-income countries more often use school meals as a platform for environmental education. Policy opportunities to enhance the sustainability of school meal programs include scaling climate-friendly foods, strengthening local agriculture links, promoting clean cooking technologies, and embedding food system sustainability into education curricula. By leveraging school meal programs, countries can address nutrition, environmental goals, and agricultural resilience simultaneously.