The Case for Reducing Food Waste

Waste not, want not – why not? Changing the way we manage food waste is an important step toward improving the global food system and making the cities we live in more sustainable. A small job it ain’t, but that’s not to say it isn’t worth doing. Read on to find out how the cities of the future can stop the rot, save the planet, and do food better.

At first blush, the case for reducing food waste seems relatively straightforward: no one likes waste, especially when it comes to food. But while awareness around the issue is growing, our understanding of the magnitude of the problem and its implications leaves much to be desired.

It’s estimated that the world wasted 931 million tonnes of food in 2019 alone, accounting for 17 per cent of all food available at the retail, food service, and consumer levels. According to the UNEP, that’s “23 million fully loaded 40-tonne trucks — bumper-to-bumper, enough to circle the Earth 7 times”.

At the same time, food loss – waste that occurs in the early stages of the supply chain between the harvest and the retail ends – accounts for 14 per cent of the world’s entire food supply.

Waste and loss on this scale have big consequences for our environment. The carbon footprint of unconsumed food is responsible for 8-10 per cent of greenhouse gases, which is roughly equivalent to the amount produced by global transport emissions.

Food loss and waste also have an economic burden. Approximately $400 billion is said to be lost on an annual basis between harvest and the retail market due to inefficient harvesting and storage processes.

All this makes it clear that something is rotten in the way we manage food waste, but it’s the human toll that puts the issue in starkest relief.

Despite the sheer amount of food we throw away, 733 million people around the world continued to go hungry in 2023, with the UN warning that this is only set to increase due to global political pressure.

The Challenge

As you’d probably expect, there’s no silver bullet when it comes to reducing food waste. Real change will require concerted action at the individual, national, and global levels.

However, as we’re often reminded, cities are playing a central role in building a better, more sustainable future – and there’s no reason why food waste should be an exception.

So, where to start?

Towards a Zero-Waste City

There can be no credible plan to tackle food waste without an understanding of how and in what form it occurs.

That said, it’s widely acknowledged that more data is needed to understand the true picture of waste across the globe and the way it differs between country and region, particularly when it comes to lower- and middle-income countries. The UNEP has created a reporting measure to help countries build a better picture of food waste, but there’s no reason cities can’t get ahead of the curve and conduct their own research.

The C40 Knowledge Hub, for example, has an excellent set of resources to help cities measure and characterise food waste, including its Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard, a “framework that cities can use to shape their approach to collecting and analysing this data”.

Teach it, Don’t Preach It

Gathering better data on food waste is only the first step. The real work begins with educating the public about the problem.

Raising awareness around food waste can take many forms. However, in order to be effective, it must be combined with the tools to help citizens reduce waste themselves.

Successful campaigns that do both aren’t difficult to find. The US government’s effort to reduce food waste during WWI is a good example of a coordinated public campaign that harnessed civic goodwill to save food and gave citizens the knowledge to do so, through canning and preserving classes for example. In fact, a lot of the messaging is just as relevant today as it was more than 100 years ago.

There are many modern examples, too. Love Food Hate Waste is a UK organisation that raises awareness about waste and provides practical resources for people trying to reduce their impact, including recipes for using leftovers, portion planners, and tips for preserving fresh food for longer.

Ultimately, changing the way we manage food waste will require not only greater awareness and better tools but a significant cultural shift. Everything from the way we shop, the size of the portions we eat, the plates and dishes we eat them on to our attitudes to frozen food will need to change if we’re to achieve any kind of significant progress.

But the responsibility shouldn’t be on citizens’ shoulders alone. Public infrastructure, such as kerbside collection for food waste or donation centres, is a necessary part of translating good intentions into action. The principle is simple enough: cities should make it as easy as possible for citizens to do the right thing.

Getting Down to Business

‘Citizens’ includes those of the corporate variety. Unfortunately, not all businesses – and not all individuals – want to do the right thing. Allegations of greenwashing in the food industry are not uncommon and include false and misleading claims about everything from the origin of our food to its environmental benefits.

Nevertheless, the business case for reducing food loss and waste is strong. And, although they have less influence on the production end of the supply chain, which is often located outside urban areas, cities can still have significant influence on the corporations its residents interact with every day.

Price-based measures – including subsidies for the development of food waste reduction technologies, incentives for food waste donation, and taxes on wasted food – are just one vehicle cities can use to encourage better practices at the retail and market ends of the supply chain.

Other ideas include getting businesses involved in the fight against food waste through providing assistance for monitoring and measuring waste and engaging them in campaigns and challenges.

But cities don’t have to wait for businesses to set the example. They can model the responsible corporate behaviour they’d like to see by integrating food waste reduction measures into procurement practices and city-owned buildings and cafeterias.

In fact, many cities around the US are already redesigning their procurement practices through initiatives like the Good Food Purchasing Program, which provides a purchasing framework for large institutions that centres around five key values: local economies, environmental sustainability, a valued workforce, animal welfare, and nutrition.

Going Full Circle

There’s no doubt that our food system needs a shake-up if we’re to feed a burgeoning population and reduce waste in the process. Improving supply chains and procurement is certainly a step in the right direction, but it’s also high time we reassess the very idea that waste itself can no longer be used.

For example, the city of Guelph has been the site of an innovative initiative to create Canada’s first circular food economy, in which waste is used as a resource to produce other food products. And, in Europe and the US, more and more cities are using anaerobic digestion to turn food waste into energy in the form of biogas.