Act Now

UNEP estimated that out of the total food wasted in 2022, households were responsible for 631 million tonnes equivalent to 60 percent (UNEP, 2024).

Consumer food waste is a global challenge, not limited to developed countries, and significant almost everywhere it has been measured. Awareness of the problem of food waste – and its impacts on climate change – is increasing. Speak up, and help make wasting food socially unacceptable.

Changing a few habits can make a big difference:

• Plan food purchases and meal preparation, shop mindfully, and store food properly to maintain its quality and shelf-life.
• Pay attention to the “use-by” date on food labels, especially when purchasing highly perishable foods.
• Measure portion sizes for meal preparation and preserve, share or donate surplus food.
• Participate in community efforts to recover surplus food and support food redistribution.
• Compost food waste or explore options for local food waste collection.

Cities are uniquely positioned to lead the fight against food waste. Cities can be nimble in their policy development and program implementation, and have direct regulatory control over solid waste and many public health issues that dovetail with food waste. By reducing wasted food, cities can stabilize municipal waste management costs and meet climate and sustainability goals. By rescuing surplus food, cities can address food gaps. And by recycling food scraps, cities can minimize what ends up in landfills. To do so, they can:

• Prepare and adopt holistic plans to aims to reduce food waste.
• Stimulate investments in food loss and waste reduction activities through green public procurement, the establishment of food-waste free public canteens or municipal markets.
• Incentivize community-supported agriculture and initiatives that reduce food loss at the primary level, such as urban food gardens
• Create a local food environment that encourages a wide range of public and private actors to develop food waste prevention activities
• Raise awareness and educate about the value of food through educational program or impacting campaigns stimulating citizens to reduce food waste.
• Incentivize the creation of bio-waste management systems to ensure remaining food waste is valorized.

National governments can achieve climate and environmental targets, while at the same time improving food security and saving money for families and businesses, by adopting food loss and waste reduction policies and actions. They can:

• Invest in national agriculture and food data systems to generate information that is relevant for agrifood systems transformation.
• Make use of the Food Loss Index (FLI) and Food Waste Index (FWI) methodologies to measure and report on FLW, target hotspots and track progress.
• Support the implementation of national strategies and roadmaps, infrastructure development and innovation to enhance the economic viability of preventing and reducing FLW, as well as to accelerate the pace of transitioning to the circular economy.
• Scale up and expand education, awareness-raising campaigns and behaviour change interventions to reduce FLW.
• Collaborate with and support research by academic and private sector entities to prevent, reduce, reuse and upcycle FLW towards maximizing its use for consumption in a sustainable manner.
• Adopt food waste deterrence policies and provide an adequate regulatory, institutional and policy environment, with incentives for the adoption and scaling up of successful innovations that accelerate the pace of FLW reduction.
• Incentivize food supply chain stakeholders and businesses to scale up and expand their efforts to reduce FLW, implement circular economy practices, and enhance the sustainability of their operations.

The private sector has a key role to play in imprinting dynamism and accelerating change in food systems. It can also benefit from food loss and waste reduction, as it was proven to bring economic development and contribute to positive indicators in employment, productivity and sustainability. They can:

• Engage in public–private partnerships, collaborating across supply chains to maximize FLW prevention and food surplus donation, overcome bottlenecks, and co-develop solutions that support transitioning to the circular economy.
• Increase transparency and accountability by measuring and publicly reporting on FLW.
• Use food business communication channels to raise awareness among consumers and provide practical solutions to support food waste reduction in households.

Civil society organizations are key to raise citizens awareness on the real cost of food waste: 

• Engage with governments to advocate for policies to reduce FLW.
• Expand collaborations with governments and private entities to scale up the recovery and redistribution of surplus food, and educate consumers on food waste reduction.
• Support governments at all levels – as well as food businesses – to implement roadmaps for FLW reduction.
• Contribute to communication strategies and expand outreach and awareness-raising to positively influence and impact consumer behaviour change.

Research and academia can play a key role in identifying food loss and waste hotspots and root causes, promoting practical solutions in post-harvest and processing practices, and advancing methodologies to quantify the climate benefits of FLW reduction. They can:

• Conduct research to identify FLW hot spots and their underlying causes in order to identify context-specific solutions and promote education and awareness on FLW issues.
• Mainstream practical aspects of FLW reduction in post-harvest handling and food-processing programmes.
• Collaborate on and scale up the use of methodological approaches to quantify the impacts of FLW reduction on GHG emissions.