Hannah Koski, August 23, 2021

An estimated 35% of food in the United States goes unsold or uneaten, the vast majority of which becomes food waste at significant environmental cost, while at the same time as many as 42 million people experience hunger. The potential environmental and social impacts of tackling food loss and waste are myriad, but for the business and sustainability leaders looking to take it on, the how-to isn’t always simple. Here’s how we at Blue Apron got started:

Approximately 35% of the food produced in the U.S. -- or 62 million tons -- goes to waste every year. And 40% of that food waste comes from consumer-facing businesses, including independent food retailers. By reducing food waste by just 20% over the next decade, the U.S. could prevent nearly 18 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

By: Katherine DiMatteo

Although most of the Climate Collaborative’s funding comes from generous donations from companies, we have received a few grants that help support our programming to help companies improve their climate practices. Eat the Change Impact™ (ETC Impact) is one of these crucial funders.  Founded in 2020 by social entrepreneurs Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas, ETC Impact is a grant program dedicated to promoting and expanding access to climate-friendly foods.

I hope you were able to join last week’s food waste webinar, featuring an exclusive training on the new ReFED Insights Engine. In case you missed it, here is a run-down of a fantastic set of new food waste resources to support your food waste prevention journey:

• Watch last week's training
• Explore ReFED's Insights Engine
• Check out their new Roadmap to 2030: Reducing U.S. Food Waste by 50%
• Revisit our KeHE sponsored food waste resources: 10-step Food Waste Reduction Toolkit and self-assessment tool

You can download a version of this case study here.

The Climate Potential of Food Waste Reduction

A third of all food produced globally goes to waste, accounting for 4.4 gigatonnes of GHG emissions. If food waste were its own country, it would rank third-highest in emissions of all the countries on Earth![1]

Food waste emissions are created through the process of growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food, then transporting it again to its final resting place—the landfill—where it rots, creating more GHG emissions. Food waste also represents a tremendous waste of resources including water, cropland, fuel, fertilizer and human labor, making it not only terrible for the environment but also a significant financial loss for brands, retailers and consumers!

Situated between producers, distributors and consumers, retailers have a unique potential to impact emissions both upstream and down, by working with all of these parties to minimize food loss and waste. BriarPatch Food Co-op, a community-owned business in Grass Valley, California, has pioneered a successful effort to minimize waste at the source by working with local producers.

The Climate Collaborative is thrilled to release a new 10-step Food Waste Reduction Toolkit and self-assessment tool, both geared at supporting retailers in reducing their food waste impacts.

If the United States went shopping in your store, it would leave with five bags, drop two in the parking lot, and leave them there. This may seem crazy, but as a country, we leave a full 40 percent of our food uneaten. And it’s not just food going in the trash: Up to about one-fifth of U.S. cropland, fertilizers, and agricultural water go towards growing food that’s ultimately wasted. Food waste is responsible for at least 2.6 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (equivalent to more than that of 37 million cars), and wasting less food was ranked third of 100 solutions to climate change by Project Drawdown.