It has been an enormous undertaking to produce food that supplies a growing global population, especially when there are limited resources. Because of climate change and extinction of natural resources, food production technologies are now moving towards more sustainable methods to eliminate the negative impacts by maintaining a high standard of environmental and social responsibility throughout the food supply chain. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is considered as an emerging alternative food production approach compared to traditional field production and market systems associated with it. The benefits are attributed to lower land use and footprint, higher food safety and shelf life, localization opportunities, and resource use efficiency. Even though CEA offers many sustainability benefits, operational, energy, and cost-related challenges can limit its adoption. This session will first give an overview on the sustainability challenges such as geographical differences, consumer perception of products originated from CEA systems, energy use challenges, sustainability assessment metrics as evidenced in the life cycle assessment studies to date, and the opportunities in creating circularity pathways. We will then present ongoing research in (i) developing digitalization approaches supported by mathematical modeling for the optimization of CEA food production and operations; and (ii) hydroponic systems technology and food safety aspects of production. This collaborative session was brought together by the IFT Sustainable Food Systems Division and is expected to provide a breadth and depth of information on CEA systems and their implications for the food industry. Speakers: Mengyi Dong, PhD, Ziynet Boz, PhD