The winners of the Global Food Security programme (GFS) Policy Lab competition have released their policy recommendations at the United Nations COP26 Climate Change conference this November. Early Career Researchers from a variety of disciplines across the breadth of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have worked together over the past 6 months to establish evidence-based policy recommendations to reduce the food we waste throughout our food system, tackling the staggering 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions that arise from food loss and food waste.
The recommendations presented at COP26 are the conclusion of a policy-facing report written by UKRI funded PhD and postdoctoral researchers, A tool in the toolkit: Can True Cost Accounting remove siloed thinking about food loss and waste? which will be released soon. The authors of the report developed their policy recommendations on the back of an in-depth literature review and after holding several focus groups with a variety of stakeholders spanning across the whole food system.
Food loss and food waste have a surprisingly large impact on our society; globally over a third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year. If food loss and waste were represented as a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, causing 10% of our global emissions. This wasted food also represents wasted fertilizers, pesticides and human effort, unnecessary use of farming land, transportation and consumer money. It is estimated that the economic costs of food loss and waste are $700 billion a year, and social costs $900 billion a year. “COP26 is an urgent opportunity to get countries to decrease their greenhouse gases” author of the report Siobhan Maderson (Aberystwyth University) explains “and decreasing food loss and waste is a key part of that.”
The early career researchers propose six policy recommendations and changes to practices that could help meet our net zero goals by reducing the amount of food we waste. The full report will be released soon.
Read the executive summary here: GFS Policy Lab Executive Summary True Cost Accounting
Watch a summary of the report:
Report authors:
- Bernd Bonfert (Cardiff University)
- Miranda Burke (Lancaster University)
- Aoife Caffrey (Ulster University)
- Siobhan Maderson (Aberystwyth University)
- Amy Molotoks (Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York)
- Justine Pearce (Royal Veterinary College)
- Mehroosh Tak (Royal Veterinary College)