Effective Food Waste Prevention

Review of policy instruments and recommendations for effective food waste prevention

  • News 08.07.2019

Each year, approximately one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted worldwide. The waste of resources used for this food has significant environmental impacts in terms of land and water use as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, one of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains by 2030. However, sufficient knowledge about the suitability of instruments for food waste prevention is still lacking.

Jennifer Schinkel, Research Fellow in the Circular Economy Division at the Wuppertal Institute, published an article on this topic entitled "Review of policy instruments and recommendations for effective food waste prevention". The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, it outlines the generation and causes of food losses and waste. Second, it discusses good practices from different countries, e.g. Germany France and the United Kingdom, such as laws to reduce food waste, voluntary agreements, awareness campaigns and results from behavioural economics. Finally, based on these findings, the paper identifies barriers to as well as requirements for the implementation of effective and efficient instruments.

The article was published in the journal "Waste and Resource Management" and can be downloaded under the following link.


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