Food Waste

Nearly one-third of food produced is discarded before consumption. More than 50% of food waste occurs during the upstream process such as production, handling, etc., with the rest happening during downstream processes such as distribution, consumption. It can happen due to oversupply of the market, retailers throwing out edible food they consider subpar, consumers throwing it out, and others.

The environmental impacts are large, as it has an effect on many areas of the environment, including but not limited to, climate change and natural resource depletion.

One-quarter of GHG emissions result from food waste - as it degrades, it emits gases up to 25 times more harmful than CO2 emissions.

The impacts are due not solely to the degradation of food products in landfills, but also to the processes involved in producing food such as water use, land-use change, and energy consumption.

Nearly 800 million people suffer from malnutrition worldwide. With the population expected to increase by 2.3 billion people by 2030, food production would have to increase by 56% to feed this growing population. However, the current food production is sufficient to feed the world’s population twice over, if it was all used effectively rather than wasted.

Nearly one-third of food produced is discarded before consumption. Power imbalances in the supply chain are largely responsible for the continued waste, with large-scale companies dictating how food is produced and processed, externalising waste to the producers and consumers alike.

The economic burden of food waste is roughly USD940 billion annually, rising to USD2.6 trillion when accounting for the cost of environmental issues. Food waste has a significant impact on the market; higher waste influences demand in such a way that causes rising food stock prices, causing risk to people with minimum income who cannot afford to spend more on food.

Sources

​​https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/international-efforts-wasted-food-recovery

Food Waste: why it's bad

The Environmental Impact of Food Waste | Move For Hunger

Environmental impacts of food waste: Learnings and challenges from a case study on UK

Economic, social and environmental world impacts of food waste on society and Zero waste as a global approach to their elimination

The Social Impact of Food Waste

Community social capital and status: The social dilemma of food waste

This topic assesses the environmental impact attributed to companies from food waste, including the social impacts.

The impact assessment should include the absolute amount of food wasted, what kind of environmental impacts it has on the planet, how long the impact lasts and how detrimental it is.

As a secondary point, the analysis should discuss the social impacts of food waste on both hunger and the economy, how long these effects will last, and how detrimental they are.

To this aim, the analysis should include not only the amount of food waste produced but also where along the chain most of the food is wasted, what kinds of food are wasted, and whether any measures are in place to minimise the impact.

In your analysis, you should assess both the preparation process as well as throwing out food at the end of life.

The analysis needs to discuss the absolute amount of food wasted, and only then can you address remediation methods if applicable, such as efforts to reduce the total amount of food waste or to redistribute food where needed, but be sure to critically evaluate how successful these initiatives are, whether they are genuinely minimizing impact or serving more as greenwashing.

The analysis should discuss the entire food production process the company is responsible for, not just the waste of the final product.

You can include mitigation efforts where it is relevant.

Introduction

In the introduction, you should include:

• What impacts does food waste have on the environment and on society

• How much food is wasted globally

• If applicable, you should talk about the company's industry and how much food waste is generated by this industry.

• If relevant, the different types of food waste and/or when food is wasted (such as during preparation/storage, etc.) contribute to different environmental effects.

Read more on how to build a strong introduction in this article.

Core Analysis

Food waste is generated during the preparation process and by unconsumed food. Food loss and waste represent a loss of resources used in food production, which include land, water, energy, and agricultural chemicals. Additionally, food waste can generate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during landfill decomposition. Food loss and waste also highly contribute to food insecurity and hunger.

The core of the note should discuss how the company contributes to the global issue of food loss. How much waste does the company contribute to this issue, and how is this waste managed?

In the core analysis, you should address:

• The absolute amount of food wasted by the company (severity)

• How much food waste is going to landfills or being incinerated, etc.?

• What environmental impacts food waste has on the planet

• How long-lasting and detrimental these impacts are (scale and irremediability)

• In what stages of the value change is the food being wasted

• Put the total amount of food waste into context, such as how many people would have been fed and how much this represents in economic losses.

• Similarly, the total amount of food waste sent to landfill should be contextualised by looking into how many GHG emissions it likely causes or similar analysis of environmental effects.

• Mitigation efforts, such as waste reduction initiatives, converting food waste to energy, and/or treating it in a less harmful way.

Caution: this topic is not about general waste production and management - it should only address food waste specifically, touching on the environmental impacts as the focus, how many people could have been fed, and the economic burden as a secondary point.

To describe the severity of the impact, take into account:

1/ The scale of the impact

• Is the life of people concerned deeply affected, or does the issue just marginally impact them?

• Are the changes brought by the issue profoundly changing society or the planet?

2/ The scope of the impact

• Is the impact local, national, or global?

• How many people are concerned? Thousands? Millions? Billions?

3/ The irremediability of the impact

• How long would the impact described last for? Months? Years? Decades?

• How reversible is the impact described in the impact analysis? Can it be easily stopped/extended?

In your analysis, make sure you add value to your readers and go beyond the company's CSR report by not merely reporting data from the company's report but going the extra mile of providing additional metrics, studies, and sources to make your analysis robust and the impact value and severity are clear.

In 2021, Kesko Oyj generated 16,146 tonnes of food waste, i.e. 1.4% of its total food sold

In FY2021, Caesars Entertainment generated 19,287 t of food waste and sent 10,608 t to landfills

Accor's 102,000 tonnes of food waste in 2020 was equal to the average yearly food for 111,781 people