Food Loss and Waste: Quantification, Impacts and Potential for Sustainable Management

This report provides an overview of food waste and its potential role as a feedstock for material and energy valorisation. It was prepared within the framework of IEA Bioenergy Task 36. The purpose of this report is to inform countries on the issues around food waste, including quantification and arisings across the supply chain, towards implementing solutions in the waste/resource management and waste-to-energy sector that would facilitate their transition towards circularity. The topics covered in this report were selected due to their relevance in the field of waste management and waste-to-energy, particularly in the context of sustainability.

Download the full report “Food Loss and Waste: Quantification, Impacts and Potential for Sustainable Management” 

Main highlights of the report:

• Approximately 1.05 billion tonnes of food are wasted annually, equivalent to about one third of all food produced for consumption.
• Food waste poses societal, economic, and environmental impacts. Food production requires extensive resources such as land, fertiliser, fuels, water etc. When food is wasted along the supply chain, all upstream activities and resources related to their production are wasted. Moreover, if food waste is not managed and disposed of correctly, it can cause environmental issues such as an increase in methane released from landfills, unpleasant odours, and increased pollution of waterbodies.
• Quantification of Food Loss and Waste (FLW) is essential to allow development of reduction or valorisation strategies and is facilitated by specifying what to measure and how to measure it. The aim is to encourage consistency and transparency of the reported data and promote informed decisions about food loss and work on strategies to minimise FLW.
• The environmental impacts of different waste management options for municipal food waste, including avoidance, composting, anaerobic digestion (AD) and incineration have been considered using Life cycle assessment (LCA). An avoidance strategy for wasted food showed the best environmental performance, while AD resulted in the lowest environmental impact for unavoidable food residues and minimal food waste.
• Food waste contains valuable materials, such as carbohydrates, lipids and amino acids, and it is a promising feedstock for producing value-added chemicals and fuels. It is important to characterise food waste to identify optimal valorisation routes, extracting higher value from food waste while reducing impacts.

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