Spotlight: Copenhagen conference launches global framework to combat food loss, waste

A few months ago, Denmark's first supermarket selling surplus food opened its doors in Copenhagen, enabling shoppers to buy food that would be otherwise destined for the rubbish bin.

The supermarket, called WeFood, proved to be a big success and was welcomed by local communities.

Now, an international framework, designed to combat food loss and waste, has been launched at the ongoing annual conference of Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) in the Danish capital.

The framework, titled the "Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard (FLW Standard)", is the first-ever set of global definitions and reporting requirements for companies, countries and others to consistently and credibly measure, report on and manage food loss and waste.

"What can be measured can be managed. A new international standard for measuring the loss and waste of food is now a reality," Kristian Jensen, Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference presenting the standard.

"This standard is a real breakthrough. For the first time, armed with the standard, countries and companies will be able to quantify how much food is lost and wasted, where it occurs, and report on it in a highly credible and consistent manner," said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute.

The latest figures showed that a third of all food is lost or wasted worldwide as it moves from where it is produced to where it is consumed, while more than 800 million people still do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life.

Furthermore, food loss and waste globally costs up to 940 billion U.S. dollars per year and generates about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated.

"There is simply no reason that so much food should be lost and wasted. Now, we have a powerful new tool that will help governments and businesses save money, protect resources and ensure more people to get the food they need," Steer said.

Jensen said the new standard will reduce the economic losses for the consumer and food industry, alleviate the pressure on natural resources and contribute to realizing the ambitious goals set out in the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In particular, SDG Target 12.3 calls for the world to cut per capita food waste in half by 2030, along with reductions in food loss.

"We need to push for more solutions like this for the benefit of people, profit and the planet," said Jensen.

Experts at 3GF believe that the FLW standard will also help reduce food loss and waste within the private sector.

In 2015, the Consumer Goods Forum, which presents more than 400 of the world's largest retailers and manufacturers from 70 countries, adopted a resolution for its members to reduce food waste from their operations by 50 percent by 2025, with baselines and progress to be measured using the FLW standard.

Meanwhile, some leading companies, like Nestle and Tesco, are already measuring and publicly reporting on their food loss and waste.

The two-day conference, kicked off on Monday, focuses on three areas in particular: the green transition of energy systems, cities as drivers of green growth, and optimizing the use of natural resources.

At the opening of the event, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen also called on both the public and private sectors to collaborate on putting the world on a sustainable course.

"Partnerships between the public and private sectors should ensure financing and the implementation of the important agreements that the international community concluded in 2015: the climate agreement in Paris and the agreement of the SDGs in New York," the prime minister said.

More than 250 government and business leaders from all over the world are attending the event, and more than 30 public-private partnerships will be developing solutions that contribute to green growth worldwide.

3GF is a partnership initiated in 2011 by the governments of Denmark, Mexico and South Korea, and was joined later by the governments of China, Kenya, Qatar and Ethiopia. Endit