Rainforest

The RAINFOREST project addresses one of the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time: halting and reversing global biodiversity loss through transformative change in the EU’s food and biomass systems. At its core, the project co-produces new, just, viable, and actionable targets and pathways for biodiversity, forging connections across the nexus of climate action, agricultural production, trade, consumption, and human behaviour. To rigorously assess the environmental and socio-economic implications of these pathways, the project develops and operationalises a comprehensive, spatially explicit integrated model toolbox, enabling consistent evaluation of scenarios across sectors and geographies. Beyond modelling, RAINFOREST actively engages with real-world actors along food and biomass value chains through case studies and stakeholder interviews, identifying the potentials, challenges, and limits of transformative policy, social innovation, and technology-based solutions — with the aim of making change not only theoretically sound but also societally feasible. Recognising that transformation ultimately depends on governance, the project also analyses the institutional barriers and opportunities for enacting innovative and just policy reforms at all scales, with a particular focus on the intersection of food, biomass, and climate finance in advancing biodiversity targets. All findings from these strands are brought together into concrete, actionable recommendations applicable across organisational levels and sectors. Throughout, the project places strong emphasis on maximising its real-world impact through active dissemination and close collaboration with stakeholders, ensuring that results remain both scientifically robust and practically sustainable beyond the project’s lifetime.