Table 1.

The performance of local food systems on key sustainability criteria

	GHG emissions	Other environm.	Food security	Other social	Economic
Costello et al., 2021			no
Takacs & Borrion, 2020	uncertain
Majewski et al., 2020	no	uncertain		some	yes
Bellmann, 2020	no
Ritchie, 2020	no
Kinnunen et al., 2020			no
Bell & Horvath, 2020	no
Malak-Rawlikowska et al., 2019	no			uncertain	yes
Kiss et al., 2019	uncertain	uncertain		some	uncertain
Vittersø et al., 2019	uncertain	uncertain		some	uncertain
Mancini et al., 2019	uncertain			yes	yes
Rogissart et al., 2019	uncertain	uncertain		uncertain	uncertain
Sandström et al., 2018	uncertain
Deppermann et al., 2018		uncertain	no	uncertain	uncertain
Fraser & Balcombe, 2018	uncertain	uncertain	uncertain	uncertain	uncertain
Schmitt et al., 2017	no	some	no	some	yes
Clapp, 2017			no
Notarnicola et al., 2017	uncertain
Tasca et al., 2017	uncertain	yes
Karg et al., 2016			some	some
de Fazio, 2016				some	yes
Schwarz et al., 2016	yes	yes	no	some	uncertain
Pradhan et al., 2015	no	no	uncertain
Puma et al., 2015			some
Migliore et al., 2015				uncertain
Low et al., 2015					uncertain
Pradhan et al., 2014	no	no	no
D’Odorico et al., 2014			no
Kneafsey et al., 2013	uncertain	uncertain		some	yes
Galli & Brunori, 2015	uncertain	uncertain		yes	some
Webb et al., 2013	uncertain	uncertain	no
Aubry & Kebir, 2013		uncertain
Campbell, 2012	uncertain
Mundler & Rumpus, 2012	uncertain
Sexton, 2009	uncertain
Coley et al., 2009	uncertain
Rask & Rask, 2011		uncertain	no
DeSoucey, 2012				uncertain	uncertain
Carlsson-Kanyama & González, 2009	uncertain
Edwards-Jones, 2010	uncertain	uncertain		uncertain
Peters et al., 2009	uncertain	uncertain	uncertain	uncertain

Note: Following our qualitative assessment of the papers, the cells in the table answer the question whether local food systems and short supply chains contribute to more sustainability in the corresponding category (yes), do not contribute to more sustainability (no), may do so for some products or regions but not for others (uncertain), or may do so only for some sub-categories (some). Studies that are limited in scope (e.g. to organic lettuce in Lombardy or oranges in the USA) may produce more specific results than reviews that cover a broad range of products and regions. For this review, we did a systematic search on “Scholar”, an academic search engine that provides an effective way to access peer-reviewed papers and grey literature (Dixon et al., 2010; Shultz, 2007). We started from an existing set of literature and defined the following two search strings to do a systematic search for literature published since 2006 (food OR agricultural OR “agri-food” “short supply” OR “short value” OR “local supply” OR “local value” chain OR chains OR system OR systems sustainable OR sustainability OR footprint OR carbon OR emissions) and (food OR agricultural “self-sufficiency” OR “self-sufficient” OR autarky OR autarkic OR foodshed OR foodsheds). We sorted the results by relevance and then retrieved the papers based on their substance, following an evaluation of their titles and abstracts. We continued with the evaluation until the bulk of search results were no longer relevant. We also excluded books as well as articles in predatory journals (Eriksson & Helgesson, 2017; Koerber et al., 2020), but we included grey literature from academic institutions and think-tanks. We complemented the results through ad hoc searches and snowballing (Badampudi et al., 2015). While this is not an exhaustive review of the literature, it gives a representative overview of the findings in the most relevant literature on local food systems and short supply chains, ranging from individual case studies and modelling exercises to reviews