Earth Day 2020: Tackling food waste and improving sustainability
A united, consolidated, collaborative approach by all stakeholders is needed to tackle the enormous sustainability challenges facing the world today....
April 22 marks Earth Day, when people all around the world come together to show our support for the protection of the environment. While various countries and cities all around the world are tackling with an unprecedented pandemic crisis, we should also keep in mind the key urgent climate and environmental challenges ahead of us, and the need to achieve more sustainable and inclusive business models. A united, consolidated, collaborative approach by all stakeholders – from businesses and governments, to institutes of higher learning, civil organisations and consumers – is needed to tackle the biggest issues of our time, be it the pandemic we are currently living through, or indeed, the enormous sustainability challenges facing the world today.
The growing (and critical cost of food waste)
Reducing and preventing global food wastage is one of those key challenges. As the world’s leading provider of catering, hospitality and food retail services serving over 100 million consumers daily, food waste is an issue that Sodexo has tackled for a number of years. This is because one-third of food produced for human consumption yearly – approximately 1.3 billion tons – is lost, or wasted, at an estimated cost of US$1 trillion. This figure does not include the environmental cost of food waste – in addition to wastage of all the energy and water it takes to grow, harvest, transport, and package food, wasted food sent to landfills produces methane. In fact, about 11% of all the greenhouse gas emissions that come from the food system could be reduced if we stop wasting food. Globally, if food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter.
Because Sodexo provides food services to a wide range of consumers across Asia Pacific, from corporations to schools and universities, and healthcare facilities like hospitals, as well as facilities management and technical services, we believe that we all have an enormous opportunity and responsibility to help contribute to the reduction of food waste in the region.
A blueprint for sustainability requires extensive collaboration
Corporations should take the lead in implementing any blueprint for sustainable food production and distribution. One proposed approach is to utilise technology, including big data, to monitor food waste, and ascertain areas for improvement. Sodexo’s WasteWatch programme, for example, reduces, on average, more than 30% of food waste by using data to drive cultural and behavioural change, whether it is generated in the kitchen or consumer food waste. This is why we have committed to reducing food waste by 50% by 2025 and are deploying WasteWatch to 3000 sites around the world.
Collaborating with stakeholders across the entire food distribution and supply chain is also critical. For instance, Sodexo works with online surplus food marketplace Yume in Australia to procure and use quality produce and ingredients that would have otherwise ended up in landfills, preventing over 129,000 kgs of CO2 emissions since the partnership started.
By embedding best practices for planning, production and measurement, in conjunction with clients, consumers and partners, large food distribution companies like Sodexo can effectively control food waste at operational sites, and positively impact the environment
Another way corporations could reduce environmental impact is by switching to plant based foods, which reduces carbon emissions generated through animal agriculture. We have already rolled out 200 different plant based recipes in restaurants and cafeterias we operate in in the United States, and will progressively be rolling them out in the Asia Pacific region.
The challenge around single use plastic
Finally, any discussion around reducing food waste by improving the sustainability of food production and distribution must include an innovative approach towards the packaging of food materials. Single-use plastics, which include, containers, boxes, cups, bowls, utensils, wraps, bags, lids, straws and stirrers, when improperly disposed of and managed downstream, are causing damage to oceans, seafood, wildlife and the wider environment. About 300 million tons of plastic waste is generated each year, with 60% of that ending up in either landfills or the natural environment .
Understanding the critical impact of using sustainable materials, and making any sort of discernible progress in tackling this issue requires collaboration among stakeholders in Asia. It is also an area where businesses can take the lead. Even with regulations in place, such as the recently imposed ban on non-degradable plastic bags by the end of 2020 in China, success is dependent on the cooperation of supermarkets and shopping malls in major cities, as well as for the country’s ubiquitous food delivery services.
Corporations can take the lead in driving such efforts – from removing unnecessary single use plastics and providing alternate sustainable products where required, to incorporating plastic removal/replacement as a basic process, or even helping partners and customers transform into waste-free sites where opportunities to prevent, reuse, recycle and repurpose are maximised and contributing to the circular economy. We all have a stake in a sustainable future, so it behoves all of us to collaborate to make it happen, through concrete impactful actions.