Households on every continent wasted more than one billion meals a day in 2022, while 783 million people were affected by hunger. Therefore, the global food waste or remains that are wasted would provide 1.3 meals a day for those who are hungry.
These are some of the conclusions of a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). It points out that food loss continues to damage the global economy and aggravate climate change, nature destruction and pollution.
It is the most accurate estimate yet of food waste in retail distribution and household consumption. While providing guidance to countries on how to improve data collection and implement best practices to achieve food waste reduction.
In 2022, 1.05 billion tons of food waste were generated (with some inedible parts). This means that one fifth (19%) of the food available to consumers is wasted at home, in food shopping services and in retail trade.
Of this total sum, 60% occurred in homes (79 kilos of food lost per year), 28% in the various food services and 12% in retail trade.
Added to all this is that 13% of the world’s food – according to the FAO – is lost in the supply chain, from the post-harvest phase to retail trade (excluded).
Food leftovers are like a black hole in the economy, as there are exorbitant figures of losses. It is also an environmental failure, generating between 8 and 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, almost five times the emissions of the airline sector.
Furthermore, all these uses involve a heavy occupation of agricultural land; and let us not forget that the transformation of ecosystems into crops is the main cause of loss of natural habitats. But this waste is also a way of turning our backs on our fellow human beings, since 783 million people are affected by hunger each year.
“Food waste is a global tragedy. Millions of people will go hungry today due to food waste around the world,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP (UN).
“Not only is this a major development issue, but the impacts of such unnecessary waste are causing substantial costs to the climate and nature.”
But they are not only a problem of “rich countries.” This is the observation that can be seen as the availability of data has increased. And another relevant fact: countries with high, upper middle and lower middle incomes behave in a similar way; the difference in average household levels is only 7 kg/capita/year.
However, among middle-income countries there are variations in behavior between urban and rural populations, with the latter generally wasting less.
Possible explanation? Among the possible causes, it is cited that in rural areas part of the food is diverted to pets or animals and that domestic composting is more widespread.
It has also been observed that warmer countries seem to have more waste, something that would be due to the greater consumption of fresh foods with significant inedible parts and lack of a solid cold chain.
Higher seasonal temperatures, extreme heat events and droughts make it more difficult to safely store, process, transport and sell food.
The report also highlights that since 2021 the quality of data and studies that evaluate and track food waste has been strengthened. However, many low- and middle-income countries still lack adequate systems to measure progress toward meeting Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, a commitment that calls for halving food waste by 2030.
Only four G20 countries (Australia, Japan, United Kingdom, United States) and the European Union have adequate food waste estimates to track progress to 2030 while others have more partial information.
The report serves as a practical guide for countries to robustly measure and report this indicator. And in this sense, countries like Japan and the United Kingdom show that it is possible to change these situations, as they have managed to reduce them by 18% and 31% respectively.
“Governments, cities, municipalities and food businesses of all sizes should work collaboratively to reduce food waste and help users take action,” it says.
Experts also call for nations to include waste reduction targets in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that they must begin submitting to the next round of UN-sponsored climate change negotiations.
However, only 21 countries have included reducing food loss and/or waste in their national climate plans, including Cape Verde, China, Namibia, Sierra Leone and the United Arab Emirates.
The review process of these NDCs by 2025 provides an opportunity to increase climate ambition by integrating food loss and waste into these policies.
