Context: As per the Food Waste Index Report 2024, Households across the globe wasted over one billion meals a day in 2022, even as 783 million people struggled with hunger and 33% of humanity faced food insecurity.
This study is jointly authored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), a U.K.-based non-profit organisation.
Key Findings
- Household level wastage (60%) is more than the food services (28%) and retail level (12%) .
- Contrary to popular perception, food waste was not a “rich country problem”, the observed average levels of household food waste for high-income, upper-middle, and lower middle-income countries differed by just 7 kg per capita.
- The report found that food loss and waste generated “8%-10% of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — almost five times that of the aviation sector. Thus acted as a contributor to Climate change.
- Apart from four G-20 countries (Australia, Japan, U.K., U.S.) and the European Union, the majority of countries do not have a mechanism for food waste estimates suitable for tracking progress to SDG 12.3 (halving food waste ) by 2030.
- It estimated the toll of both food loss and waste on the global economy at $1 trillion