Environmental impacts of food waste in Europe

Scherhaufer, Silvia; Moates, G. K.; Hartikainen, Hanna; Waldron, Keith W.; Obersteiner, Gudrun

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2018.04.038

Cited by 401 publications

(230 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Moreover, it is essential to halve the per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels, reduce food losses along supply chains (SDG 12.3), ensure healthy lives, and promote well-being for all ages [40]. For instance, the environmental and economic impacts of food waste make up at least 15% [41] of the impacts of the entire food value chain.…”

Section: Sustainability Of Food Systems In the New Era Of Pandemic Crmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Food Systems in the Era of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Crisis

Galanakis

2020

Foods

776

636

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The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19, broadly referred to as "coronavirus") a global pandemic, while thousands of infections and deaths are reported daily. The current article explores the food systems in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It provides insights about the properties of bioactive ingredients of foods and herbs for the support of the human immune system against infections before discussing the possibility of COVID-19 transmission through the food chain. It also highlights the global food security issues arising from the fact that one-third of the world's population is on lockdown. Finally, it underlines the importance of sustainability in the food chain in order to avoid or reduce the frequency of relevant food and health crises in the future.

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Section: Sustainability Of Food Systems In the New Era Of Pandemic Crmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Food Systems in the Era of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Crisis

Galanakis

2020

Foods

776

636

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“…Food waste is a growing issue due to its environmental [1,[20][21][22][23], economic [24][25][26][27] and social implications [28][29][30]. Food waste has high carbon, water and ecological footprint [31][32][33] as well as negative impacts on cropland and fertiliser use [34].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns and Causes of Food Waste in the Hospitality and Food Service Sector: Food Waste Prevention Insights from Malaysia

et al. 2019

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Food waste has formidable detrimental impacts on food security, the environment, and the economy, which makes it a global challenge that requires urgent attention. This study investigates the patterns and causes of food waste generation in the hospitality and food service sector, with the aim of identifying the most promising food waste prevention measures. It presents a comparative analysis of five case studies from the hospitality and food service (HaFS) sector in Malaysia and uses a mixed-methods approach. This paper provides new empirical evidence to highlight the significant opportunity and scope for food waste reduction in the HaFS sector. The findings suggest that the scale of the problem is even bigger than previously thought. Nearly a third of all food was wasted in the case studies presented, and almost half of it was avoidable. Preparation waste was the largest fraction, followed by buffet leftover and then customer plate waste. Food waste represented an economic loss equal to 23% of the value of the food purchased. Causes of food waste generation included the restaurants’ operating procedures and policies, and the social practices related to food consumption. Therefore, food waste prevention strategies should be twofold, tackling both the way the hospitality and food service sector outlets operate and organise themselves, and the customers’ social practices related to food consumption.

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“…Furthermore, 24% of freshwater resources and 23% of the cropland used to produce food in 2011, was lost throughout the food supply chain (Kummu et al, 2012). At EU level, food waste has an annual climate change impact of 186 Mt CO 2 eq., representing almost 16% of the carbon footprint of the total food chain (Scherhaufer et al, 2018).…”

Section: Urgency Of Tackling Food Wastementioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability Assessment of Food Waste Prevention Measures: Review of Existing Evaluation Practices

Goossens

Wegner

Schmidt

2019

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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The last few years, a lot of measures addressing food waste have been proposed and implemented. Recent literature reviews call for more evidence on the effectiveness or food waste reduction potential of these measures. Furthermore, very few information is available on the extent to which food waste measures have been evaluated based on their economic, environmental and social performance. This review closes this knowledge gap by looking at the methodologies currently used in literature to evaluate food waste prevention measures, using a pre-defined assessment framework with quantitative evaluation criteria. In total, evaluations were examined for 25 implemented measures with measured outcomes and 23 proposed measures with projected outcomes. The paper concludes that there is a great variety in how an evaluation is performed. Additionally, in many cases, economic, environmental, or social assessments are incomplete or missing, and efficiency is only seldom calculated. This is particularly true for implemented measures whereas proposed measures with projected outcomes tend to have a more thorough evaluation. This hampers practitioners and decision-makers to see which measures have worked in the past, and which ones to prioritize in the future. Moreover, more complete information on the effectiveness and efficiency of measures would make incentives for reducing food waste at various levels along the food chain more visible. At European level, work is ongoing on the development of a reporting framework to evaluate food waste actions. This paper complements these efforts by providing an overview of the current gaps in evaluation methodologies found in literature regarding food waste prevention measures within EU and beyond.

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Environmental impacts of food waste in Europe

Cited by 401 publications

References 22 publications

The Food Systems in the Era of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Crisis

The Food Systems in the Era of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Crisis

Patterns and Causes of Food Waste in the Hospitality and Food Service Sector: Food Waste Prevention Insights from Malaysia

Sustainability Assessment of Food Waste Prevention Measures: Review of Existing Evaluation Practices

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