
Assessment of Food Waste Reduction Strategies for University Dining Leadership
According to the UN Environment Report Waste Not, Want Not “food loss refers to food leakages at upstream stages of the food supply chain such as in food production and processing, while food waste refers to discarded food at the downstream stages of the supply chain — in distribution, retail, food service and households.” Global food loss and waste have a carbon footprint of approximately 4.4 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) per year, meaning if food waste were a country, it would rank as the third top emitter after the United States and China. While greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions occur across the food supply chain (and vary by commodity), the majority of GHGs are emitted in the production and growing phase. Beyond emissions, the USDA Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) estimates food loss value exceeds $161 billion (2010 USD) annually and consumes over 21% of all freshwater use. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates landfilled food is the second highest material (behind paper and paperboard) constituting ~22% of discarded municipal solid waste. Notably, landfills have been identified as the third largest source of human-related, potent methane emissions in the US. This report outlines 21 food waste reduction strategies (called interventions in this report), selected from a robust literature review, ReFED Insights Engine, and expert and practitioner interviews. Each intervention was given a score of Favorable, Medium, or Unfavorable across these 7 attributes: economic, labor, political, environmental, food waste reduction, spatial, and time horizon.
Celia Bravard, Colton Babladelis, Janet Genser, Marney Coleman