ECI logo

Profile

Dr Marco Springmann is a Senior Researcher in Environment and Health at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI) and a Professorial Research Fellow in Climate Change, Food Systems and Health at University College London’s Institute for Global Health.

Marco is interested in the health, environmental, and economic dimensions of the global food systems. The research questions he has worked on include what impacts climate change could have on diets and diet-related mortality; what impacts diets and dietary change have on climate change, environmental resource use, nutrition, and health; how our food system would need to change to stay within global environmental limits; and what policy measures could contribute to such a change.

Marco joined the ECI in 2022. In addition, he held a professorial position at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene between 2022 and 2024, before moving to University College London in 2024. Previously, he was a Senior Researcher on Environmental Sustainability and Public Health at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Population Health (2017-2022), and a researcher and James Martin Fellow of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food (2013-2016).

Marco holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oldenburg (Germany), a MSc in Sustainability from the University of Leeds (UK), and a MS in Physics from Stony Brook University (USA). He maintains international research collaborations and has conducted research placements at institutes in the USA, Australia, China, and Germany.

His research has been published in leading journals, including Nature, Science, The Lancet, the BMJ, PNAS, and others. In addition, he has contributed to high-level reports, including those of the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, and the Global Nutrition Report.

Projects

Publications

Springmann, M. et al. (2025) “A reform of value-added taxes on foods can have health, environmental and economic benefits in Europe”, Nature Food, 6(2), pp. 161–169.
Wang, X. et al. (2025) “Bundled measures for China’s food system transformation reveal social and environmental co-benefits.”, Nature food, 6(1), pp. 72–84.
Springmann, M. (2024) “A multicriteria analysis of meat and milk alternatives from nutritional, health, environmental, and cost perspectives.”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(50), p. e2319010121.
Gu, X. et al. (2024) “Global adherence to a healthy and sustainable diet and potential reduction in premature death.”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(50), p. e2319008121.
Romanello, M. et al. (2024) “The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action.”, Lancet (London, England), 404(10465), pp. 1847–1896.
Willett, W. and Springmann, M. (2024) “Food, health, and climate change: can epidemiologists contribute further?”, International journal of epidemiology, 53(5), p. dyae109.
van Daalen, K. et al. (2024) “The 2024 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: unprecedented warming demands unprecedented action.”, The Lancet. Public health, 9(7), pp. e495 - e522.
Romanello, M. et al. (2023) “The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms.”, Lancet (London, England), 402(10419), pp. 2346–2394.
Springmann, M. et al. (2023) “The global and regional air quality impacts of dietary change.”, Nature communications, 14(1), p. 6227.
Springmann, M. et al. (2023) “International food trade contributes to dietary risks and mortality at global, regional and national levels.”, Nature food, 4(10), pp. 886–893.