United Nations Environment Programme
Climate Impact & Sustainability Data (2019)
Reporting Period: 2019
Environmental Metrics
Waste Generated:931 million tonnes/year
ESG Focus Areas
- Food Waste
Environmental Achievements
- Reduced global food waste estimates by providing a new estimate of global food waste.
Social Achievements
- Improved understanding of the scale of food waste and its impacts, highlighting the need for action in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.
Governance Achievements
- Published a methodology for countries to measure food waste, enabling consistent reporting under SDG 12.3.
Climate Goals & Targets
Long-term Goals:
- Halve food waste at the retail and consumer level and reduce food loss across supply chains by 2030.
Medium-term Goals:
- Encourage widespread adoption of a Target-Measure-Act approach to food waste reduction.
Short-term Goals:
- Support member states in developing food baselines and strategies.
Environmental Challenges
- Low global food waste data availability and highly variable measurement approaches.
- Uneven distribution of data between regions and income groups.
- Key data gaps at the household level in low-income countries, small island states, Central Asia, and Northern Africa, and at the food service and retail levels more broadly.
Mitigation Strategies
- Developed a three-level methodology for food waste measurement (Levels 1, 2, and 3), increasing in accuracy and resource requirements.
- Provided a framework for countries to transition to a common global measurement approach.
- Offered guidance on appropriate measurement methods for different sectors (manufacturing, retail, food service, households).
Supply Chain Management
Climate-Related Risks & Opportunities
Reporting Standards
Frameworks Used: SDG 12.3
UN Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 12.3
The report aims to advance progress on SDG 12.3 by providing data and a methodology for measuring food waste.