It is also imperative to understand the implications of food waste on sustainable development. Cutting food waste is one of the most effective ways to reduce climate change. When food is lost or wasted, all the resources utilised to produce these food, including energy, water and land, go to waste. Moreover, disposal of food waste in landfills leads to greenhouse gas emissions, thereby contributing to climate change.
According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the 1.3 billion tonnes of food waste every year leaves a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2, which is equivalent to 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Therefore, actions are required globally and locally from food producers to food supply chain stakeholders, retailers and consumers, to maximise the consumption of food produced and thereby reduce food loss and food waste.
For this reason, the UNEP encourages governments to make food loss and food waste a part of national climate strategies. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, says that only 11 countries have so far included food loss in their Nationally Determined Contributions. None of them included food waste. He further claims that by including food loss and waste and sustainable diets in national climate strategies, policymakers can improve their mitigation and adaptation from food systems by as much as 25 percent.
There is a need for everyone to come together and step-up efforts to reduce food loss and waste, including the use of innovation and technologies.
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, QU Dongyu, says that innovative postharvest treatment, digital agriculture and food systems and re-modelling market channels offer huge potential to tackle the challenges of food loss and waste.
Moreover, e-commerce platforms for marketing or retractable mobile food processing systems, better food packaging and relaxing on regulations and standards on aesthetic requirements for fruit and vegetables, redistributing safe surplus food to those in need through food banks, and investing more to strengthen infrastructure and logistics, including sustainable cold chains and cooling technologies, are some of the other recommendations proposed by the UNEP to reduce food loss and food waste.
It is reported that the United Kingdom has achieved a 27 percent reduction in post-farm gate food loss and waste per capita by 2018 relative to its 2007 baseline, making it the first country in the world to have advanced more than halfway towards the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, to halve per capita global food waste by 2030.
Another Commonwealth nation, Rwanda, has also been recognised by the UNEP for its efforts on sustainable cold chain for food and medicines, through the African Centre of Excellence for sustainable cooling and cold chain. Based in Kigali, the initiative has recognised the importance of energy-efficient, climate-friendly, and affordable cooling and cold chains in improving agricultural efficiency and boosting farmers’ incomes.
