The World Resources Institute, an environmental NGO, released a report Thursday that shows how the world could cut food waste by 50 percent by 2030, offering findings that are in line with the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Achieving that goal would save money, feed people more sustainably, and fight climate change.
Roughly a third of all food produced is currently wasted, the report noted, an annual loss of around 1 billion metric tons of food worth some $940 billion. That lost food also accounts for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. “More efficient use of food would reduce the need for land conversion for additional food production and slow the rate of increase in fertilizer applications and methane emissions from food in landfills,” cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the report says.
Food waste, though, occurs unevenly. In North America and Oceana, the greatest percentage of food waste (58 percent) occurs in homes and restaurants, while 21 percent is lost in production. In sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is almost reversed, with 36 percent lost in production (largely due to harvesting, storage, and transport inefficiencies) and just 5 percent lost in consumption.
The report advocated that all nations pledge to meet the UN goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030. Currently, about half the world’s population lives in countries that have made that pledge. It noted that more than 30 of the world’s largest companies have also committed to meeting that goal.
The report also advocated measuring food waste so that a baseline could be established and then reduced. But it cautioned that there is “no proverbial ‘silver bullet’ action for reducing food loss and waste. Rather, reducing it at scale will require numerous actors in the food supply chain to implement a variety of context-specific interventions.”
The report had specific recommendations for private companies, farmers, policy makers, consumers, and restaurants at all stages of the food chain.
For consumers, it advocated, among other things: