Dr. Alon Shepon from the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University has been selected as Israel's National Champion in the prestigious Frontiers Planet Prize competition. The prize was established in 2022 by the Frontiers Research Foundation based in Switzerland, and is awarded to researchers from countries across the globe who have published breakthrough research offering potential solutions for helping humanity remain within the boundaries of Earth's ecosystem. Each year, tens of research institutions around the world nominate candidates whose research has shown exceptional potential in this area to compete for the prize.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities serves as Israel's Representative National Body for the prize. Each year, the Academy assembles a designated selection committee, headed by Prof. Noga Kronfeld-Schor, which is responsible for evaluating the nominees from Israeli research institutions and puts forward three candidates to compete internationally. The international Jury of 100 conducts evaluations from December to June. During this period, candidates are evaluated in two stages: first identifying National Champions, and then selecting three International Champions. The prize for the International Champions is one million Swiss francs to support their research.

In a paper published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Shepon, together with Tamar Makov and Zhongxiao Sun, revealed a surprising finding: sugar, a product we are accustomed to thinking about solely in the context of health - diabetes, obesity, and chronic diseases - is in fact one of the most significant and overlooked environmental factors in the world.

The study found that sugarcane and sugar beet account for a quarter of all global agricultural output by weight, and their cultivation requires vast areas of land, large quantities of water, fertilizers, and energy - all for a product of low nutritional value. Yet the central finding of the study is actually optimistic: relatively modest changes in global sugar consumption patterns can yield particularly significant environmental and social gains. The freed-up land could be used to grow more nutritious food or to restore natural habitats, while surplus sugar could be redirected to alternative uses such as the production of bioplastics, biofuel, or protein.

These findings change the prevailing understanding of the relationship between diet and the environment, and offer a practical and overlooked starting point for reducing pressures on Earth's systems - climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater depletion, land-use change, and biogeochemical flows. The research shows that sustainability is not only a matter of technological innovation, but also of reallocating agricultural resources in light of actual nutritional needs and ecological boundaries.