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Food Wastage Footprint. Impact on Natural Resources

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    Book (stand-alone)
    Toolkit - Reducing the Food Wastage Footprint 2013
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    One-third of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted from farm to fork, according to estimates calculated by FAO (2011). This wastage not only has an enormous negative impact on the global economy and food availability, it also has major environmental impacts. The direct economic cost of food wastage of agricultural products (excluding fish and seafood), based on producer prices only, is about 750 billion USD, equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland. The aim of the Toolkit is to showcase concrete examples of good practices for food loss and waste reduction, while pointing to information sources, guidelines and pledges favoring food wastage reduction. The inspirational examples featured throughout this Toolkit demonstrate that everyone, from individual households and producers, through governments, to large food industries, can make choices that will ultimately lead to sustainable consumption and production patterns, and thus, a better world for all.
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    Book (stand-alone)
    Food Wastage Footprint: Full cost-accounting
    Final report
    2014
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    Approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. The economic costs of this food wastage are substantial and amount to about USD 1 trillion each year. However, the hidden costs of food wastage extend much further. Food that is produced, but never consumed, still causes environmental impacts to the atmosphere, water, land and biodiversity. These environmental costs must be paid by society and future generations. Furthermore, by contributing to environmental de gradation and increasing the scarcity of natural resources, food wastage is associated with wider social costs that affect people’s well-being and livelihoods. Quantifying the full costs of food wastage improves our understanding of the global food system and enables action to address supply chain weaknesses and disruptions that are likely to threaten the viability of future food systems, food security and sustainable development. This document introduces a methodology that enables the full-cost accounting (FCA) of the food wastage footprint. Based on the best knowledge and techniques available, FCA measures and values in monetary terms the externality costs associated with the environmental impacts of food wastage. The FCA framework incorporates several elements: market-based valuation of the direct financial costs, non-market valuation of lost ecosystems goods and services, and well-being valuation to assess the social costs associated with natural resource degradation.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Food wastage footprint & Climate Change 2015
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    The 2011 FAO assessment of global food losses and waste estimated that each year, one-third of all food produced in the world for human consumption never reached the consumer’s table. This not only means a missed opportunity for the economy and food security, but also a waste of all the natural resources used for growing, processing, packaging, transporting and marketing food. Through an extensive literature search, the 2011 assessment of food wastage volumes gathered weight ratios of food losse s and waste for different regions of the world, different commodity groups and different steps of the supply chain. These ratios were applied to regional food mass flows of FAO’s Food Balance Sheets for the year 2007. Food wastage arises at all stages of the food supply chains for a variety of reasons that are very much dependent on the local conditions within each country. At a global level, a pattern is clearly visible; in high income regions, volumes of wasted food are higher in the processin g, distribution and consumption stages, whereas in low-income countries, food losses occur in the production and postharvesting phases.

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