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Food Loss and Waste
We want to see a world in which food's true value is recognised and wastage is dramatically reduced to end hunger, cater for a growing global population and reduce the pressure on our planet.
In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, we want to see global food waste halved by 2030, and major reductions achieved in food loss. This will substantially reduce the demand for food production, allowing us to ease pressures on nature.
One of the most important things is for food loss and waste measurement to be institutionalised across food systems. Presently, too few farmers, businesses or consumers understand exactly how much food they are throwing away, or which foods are going uneaten.
With a better understanding of what is being lost and why, the right solutions can be implemented. Businesses can make investment in their operations and consumers can take responsibility for their actions. There may be times when policymakers need to implement legislation, to either incentivise food loss and waste reduction, or to penalise those who are throwing away edible food. The most effective solutions will involve multi-stakeholder collaboration and the design of food systems which work for everyone.
There will always be some unavoidable loss and waste, be it due to pests, extreme weather or diseases, changes in market demand or simply because not all parts of all foods are edible. Indeed, interpretation of what is classified as waste differs from place to place, with some parts of food deemed inedible in one country, but a delicacy in another. In any case, we need to keep food out of landfill, to avoid the release of additional emissions, instead redirecting any edible food to the hungry, and using scraps for animal feed or composting.
