Food Waste Intelligence

In December of 2019, the United Nations General Assembly designated September 29 as the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW). UN leaders sought to raise awareness of the scope and scale of the global food waste challenge to speed progress toward Target 12.3 – the global goal of halving food waste by 2030.

As we celebrate the fourth annual observance of the IDAFLW this week, we remain excited by the fact that food loss and waste is now explicitly recognized on the UN calendar – and we believe this date is only growing in importance.

At Leanpath we have long recognized the connection between food waste and climate change.  That critical connection is foundational to our mission of making food waste prevention and measurement everyday practice in the world’s kitchens. 

The food waste-climate connection has been amplified by many organizations.  For example, the UNFAO famouslynoted years ago that if ranked as a country, food waste would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions behind the U.S. and China. The World Wildlife Fund recentlyfound that global food wastage accounts for up to 10% of global emissions. And the Project Drawdown teamcited food waste reduction as one of the top solutions to climate change.

In addition, UK-basedWRAP highlighted a critical point in a recent report (Food Loss and Waste: From Commitments to Action) that bears repeating: We cannot achieve net zero emissions without tackling food loss and waste. 

We are all seeing signs of emissions-driven climate change around the world in recent weeks in the form of record temperatures, drought, fires, and floods, and we think it is important to highlight stories reflecting those signals.

In late April the ReFED team released new estimates on U.S. food waste in its Insights Engine – a valuable tool to help all interested food system stakeholders learn more about the amount and causes of food waste in the U.S., its environmental impact, and the types and effectiveness of solutions to address it.

Among many notable stats was the finding that by the time food gets to a foodservice kitchen’s back door, it already contains 80% of its greenhouse gas load. Further proof that food waste prevention—actually stopping food waste from being generated—is the most effective way for kitchens to reduce their carbon footprint when they address food waste.

The world is at an inflection point regarding climate change and the many sustainability challenges underlying theUN’s Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), including food waste reduction.

We’re at thehalfway point toward the 2030 due date for the SDGs, but we are not moving fast enough on many of them to make that deadline.

Given the critical nexus aspect of food waste, it is especially important that the world get on track for halving global food waste by 2030 as called for by SDG Target 12.3.

Today, September 29^th, we celebrate the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, an important day which was added to the UN calendar three years ago – and we were excited to join our colleagues at the Future Food Institute in bringing this to fruition.

Three years from its creation, the need to draw attention to the scale of the food waste challenge is more important than ever.  A new report from the World Wildlife Fund, for example, notes that 40% of global food production is lost or wasted annually, with food waste alone accounting for 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

Thus, at a high level, with over 800 million hungry and myriad environmental externalities associated with food waste, responsible foodservice organizations already have strong incentive to focus on preventing the occurrence of food waste.