All Facts & Findings

Farmers:

(Food waste along the supply chain)

"(A bad crop) will simply be thrown away because the price is not good enough to bother harvesting it."

The Food Wast Hierarchy

from most preferred to least -

Prevention - Reuse - Recycle - Recovery - Disposal

'Waste':

“uncomplicatedly the rejected and worthless stuff”

“Food waste” sounds like something hazardous - potentially harmful or inedible, and of little use or value. The ways we manage our waste mean that the problem of food waste is largely invisible to most of us, as we don’t have a window into each step of the food supply chain, nor do we tend to give a great deal of thought to the food we waste as individuals or households.

The Food Wastage Footprint

illustrates "the market distortions in the global food system".

The immediate financial costs and gains of producing, selling and wasting food are not the only economic considerations. The FAO’s assessment shows that the way our current food system is built to operate is economically inefficient and environmentally unsustainable.

Methane: 25x more potent than CO2

1 ton of food in landfill = 1.9 tons of greenhouse gases

Aside from these emissions, when food is wasted, along with it goes all of the energy, emissions, water, land use and human effort embedded in its production, harvesting, packaging, storage and transport.

43.8%

of food wasted each year ends up in Australian landfill.

7.3 million tons of food is wasted each year in Australia, of which 3.2 million tons - 43.8% - ends up in landfill.

35.3 million tons

of food waste goes to landfill

in the United States, every year, representing close to a quarter (24.1%) of landfills.

USD 900 billion

the global social costs of food waste

The full-cost accounting of the 'Food Wastage Footprint' puts economic costs at USD 700 billion, social costs at USD 900 billion, in addition to the economic cost of USD 1 trillion.

USD 1 trillion

the cost of food waste each year.

From an economic perspective, the inefficiency of food production globally is mind-boggling. The financial cost of wasting a third of the food we produce amounts to about USD 1 trillion each year.

1/4

of global carbon emissions is from agriculture

"Agriculture needs to go through this profound change over the next 30 years where it needs to significantly increase production and significantly reduce emissions. At the same time, it needs to do all of that whilst adapting to rapidly changing conditions as a result of climate change."

70%

more food by 2050

Globally, we need to produce 70% more food by 2050 to feed a rising population.

The Perfect Storm

In higher-income countries, while many people still struggle with food insecurity, the accessibility and relative affordability of food has created a perfect storm of consumption and waste as the value we place on food has dropped.

Where does food come from?

"You forget that this ready meal came all from a field"

"And when it's packaged up so beautifully, it's hard to relate to, that something comes in seasons, it's governed by weather, and all of those things that we need to make sure that farming and our food system is something that serves our planet as well.‍"

Ready-to-eat

meals and dining out became a norm.

Convenience grew to be a high priority for consumers. The accompanying affordability and ease of access to prepared meals further reduced consumers’ concerns for food waste.

'Best Before' & 'Use By'

By the 1970's there were more than 50 different labelling systems.

Innovations in packaging meant that food products could be stored for longer periods, and transported further distances. Enter the rise of ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ date stamping, a practice so inconsistent that by the 1970s there were more than 50 different labelling systems. For safety conscious customers, food that had not gone ‘off’ would be discarded due to conservative date stamping by producers and retailers.

Retailers

began to enforce stringent aesthetic standards

Overstocking was preferable to the risk of under supplying customers, and so food products past their prime would be binned.

42.5%

A household's income percentage spent on food in 1901

About 100 years later, this figure had dropped to one-fifteenth (6.6%) of a household’s income being spent on food. With it, the financial incentives for people to save and preserve food deteriorated.

1948 to 1973

was marked by sustained economic growth.

Rates of employment and wages rose. In the food industry, innovations in agricultural machinery, storage, food processing and transportation vastly increased efficiency and lowered the costs of production.

1/3

of the food we produce globally is wasted

Food waste

is the third larger emitter.

"‍It's the third largest emitter of carbon after China and America, if it was a country. And we're planning to double our food supply by 2050 to feed the expected 9 billion on the planet, but yet wasting a third of what we produce.”

Agriculture

“I started researching food waste and I couldn't believe the scale of the problem of how much we were wasting, especially with the basic fact that agriculture is the single largest impact that we as humans have on our planet."

A menu

of solutions is needed to decarbonize agriculture

Unlike many aspects of energy production where viable opportunities for upscaling low-carbon energy—renewable or nuclear energy—are available, the ways in which we can decarbonize agriculture are less clear. We will need a menu of solutions: changes to diets; food waste reduction; improvements in agricultural efficiency; and technologies that make low-carbon food alternatives scalable and affordable.

1/4

of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions is from food production

Reducing emissions from food production will be one of our greatest challenges in the coming decades.

A sustainable food system

Within a sustainable food system, everybody has access to appropriate and nutritious food in ways that are economically profitable, socially beneficial, and environmentally neutral or positive, to ensure the same can be true for future generations.

A food system

is an umbrella term...

for all the activities involved in producing, processing, distributing, consuming and disposing of food.

A robust sustainable and governance framework

within a business is a really strong risk management framework for the long term.

"It really does come down to not just the immediate impact of your operations, but how are you designed as a business to cope with change? What we're seeing is many businesses start to put in emissions management frameworks, and as much as anything that is a good hedge against future regular regulatory change, because your business is already ready.”

Giving is not a substitute or trade-off

Ask yourself this question.

While a business committing to donate a portion of profits to achieving impact is noble, it is not a substitute or trade-off. How else can your business work for equality, and have a positive social and environmental impact through its core operations?

Use platforms to reach consumers

“We always try to authentically communicate what's worked and what hasn't. We wrote a 10 minute read about why we've switched our model on our blog, and have also taken questions on Q and A via social media. A lot of the questions were either resolved, or there was understanding on why we've done what we have.”

Demonstrating your commitment to purpose

creates an opening to engage with customers in a deeper way.

Providing customers with opportunities to interrogate your decision-making and understand your approach enables them to ‘identify with and feel ownership of’ the business’s purpose.

Bring customers on the journey

Be as transparent as possible.

If you are changing the fundamentals of your existing giving model, be as transparent with your customers as possible. While there may be misunderstandings and criticisms, allow space for these conversations and be prepared to explain why your business is taking a different approach.

Look to impact

over activities or outputs

This may require further training and learning about impact evaluations and theory of change methodologies. Get to grips with what meaningful change would look like in this context. Allow room in the budget for the nonprofit to undertake reporting, and be clear on what they are measuring.

"First...

start with a posture of listening and learning and doing research on the areas and challenges that you want to play a role in."

"For too long, we (the corporate sector) have gone in with our own agenda, like a brand leverage promotion. Saying can we maximize CSR or good governance with our brand and tying that to more sales? But if we're all serious about tackling injustices or inequity in our world, let's take the time to listen. To ask our partners what's really needed as well in terms of what types of solutions, what type of funding is really needed as well.”