Consumer Goods Companies Commit to Halving Food Waste

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July 10, 2015

Consumer Goods Companies Commit to Halving Food Waste
by Robert Kropp

Four hundred corporate members of the Consumer Goods Forum commit to a sustainability program that includes halving food waste within their operations by 2025.

SocialFunds.com -- A 2013 report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) documents the environmental and social damage inflicted by wasting up to one-third of food produced globally for human consumption. Defining food waste as �food that is of good quality and fit for human consumption but that does not get consumed because it is discarded,� the report states, �32 percent of all food produced in the world was lost or wasted in 2009.�

The consequences of such waste are several. �In a world of rising population, increasing cost of food, concerns about inequality and growing food insecurity, food waste is one of the greatest challenges of our time,� states the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a network of 400 retailer and manufacturers members. Food waste adds over 3 billion tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the earth's atmosphere every year; �If food waste was a country,� the Forum continued, �it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally after China and the US.�

Also, �The water footprint of food waste is equivalent to three times the volume of Lake Geneva,� CGF states. �It represents an economic cost to the global economy of $750 billion per year.�

CGF members have responded to the food waste crisis by incorporating it into its Sustainability Pillar , which also includes commitments to zero net deforestation by 2020 and, starting this year, the phasing out of ozone-depleting hydro fluorocarbons (HFC) in refrigeration.

CGF's Food Waste Resolution commits members to the following actions:
1. Preventing food waste, then maximizing its recovery towards the goal of halving food waste within the retail and manufacturing operations of CGF members by 2025, versus a 2016 baseline;
2. Halving per capita global food waste at the consumer level; and
3. Reducing food losses along production and supply chains including post-harvest losses and maximize the value of the remaining waste.

The resolution seeks to align CGF policy with the Food Loss & Waste Protocol under development by the WRI, �a multi-stakeholder effort to develop the global accounting and reporting standard for quantifying food and associated inedible parts removed from the food supply chain.�

According to the aforementioned report by UNEP and WRI, �There is some precedent for progress.� In the UK, the Waste and
Resource Action Program (WRAP) �achieved a 13 percent reduction in household food waste from 2007 to 2010. Manufacturers and retailers that signed up for Phase 2 of the Courtauld Commitment, a voluntary agreement convened by WRAP, reduced their food and drink waste by 8.8 percent between 2009 and 2011.�

Furthermore, the report continued, �Pilot efforts in Benin, Cape Verde, India, and Rwanda have documented reductions of food loss by more than 60 percent during field trials of a variety of low-cost storage techniques and handling practices.�

In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides a number of food waste assessment tools.

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