UN: the world wastes over a billion meals a day and 1.05 billion tonnes of food

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) put a number on the global scale of the problem in its Food Waste Index Report 2024, written with the British organisation WRAP. In 2022 the world generated 1.05 billion tonnes of food waste, inedible parts included. That is 132 kg for every person on Earth, and close to a fifth of all the food available to consumers.

Where the waste comes from breaks down simply: 60 percent from households, 28 percent from food service and 12 percent from retail. The authors stress one conclusion. This is not a problem of rich countries alone. Average household waste differs by just 7 kg per person between high-income, upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Climate and money

Food loss and waste produce 8-10 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, almost five times more than the entire aviation sector. They also drive serious biodiversity loss, using an area equal to nearly a third of the world's agricultural land. The authors put the cost to the global economy at about a trillion dollars.

Who measures, reduces

The report does more than count. It shows what works. By 2022, only 21 countries had written food loss and waste reduction into their national climate plans (NDCs). Only four G20 countries have estimates good enough to track progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which calls for halving waste at retail and consumer level by 2030: Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the USA. The European Union has them too. Canada and Saudi Arabia have comparable data for households.

Results come where policy and partnerships were put in place. Japan cut its food waste by 31 percent and the United Kingdom by 18 percent. British public-private partnerships helped cut more than a quarter of household food waste per person between 2007 and 2018. UNEP also lists similar programmes in Australia, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa.

The institutional backing

Measurement comes first. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has run the Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste since December 2015, set up jointly with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) after a recommendation by G20 agriculture ministers. The platform co-founded the Food is Never Waste coalition, led by FAO and UNEP, and works towards Goal 12.3. Without data there is no policy, and without policy there is no reduction. That is the main argument of both institutions.