International Day for Food Loss and Waste Reduction: The Role of GRI 13
Today is the International Day of Awareness on Food Loss and Waste Reduction, highlighting the pressing need for the global food system to address food losses and waste. The number of people affected by hunger has been slowly on the rise since 2014, and tons of edible food are lost or wasted every day. This crucial topic is not only covered by the GRI Waste Standard but also a significant component of the new GRI 13: Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Fishing Sector Standard.
Why is Food Loss and Waste a Problem?
One-third of all food produced in the world – approximately 1.3 billion tons – is lost or wasted every year. Globally, if food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States. The resources needed to produce the food that becomes lost or wasted has a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billon tons of CO2.
In the U.S. alone, an estimated 133 billion pounds of edible food (worth over $161 billion) goes to waste every year. Food waste also contributes to the largest volume of material in U.S. landfills accounting for 21% of the waste stream. Food waste costs Canadians $31 billion annually or about 2% of the country’s GDP.
Target SDG 12.3 under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to halve global per capita food waste as part of SDG 12, which focuses on Responsible Production and Consumption. Achieving this target necessitates the measurement of food loss by various stakeholders.
What is the Impact of Agriculture, Aquaculture, and Fishing Activities?
Within the agriculture, aquaculture, and fishing sectors, products initially intended for human consumption that end up as waste are categorized as food loss. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in 2016, 13.8% of food, from harvest to retail, was lost globally. Addressing food loss not only enhances food security, but also prevents unnecessary negative environmental impacts and the squandering of valuable resources.
The Significance of Disclosures and Management of Impacts
The GRI 13: Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing 2022 – GRI’s Sector Standard for corporate sustainability reporting by companies in the sector – lead organizations to describe policies or commitments to address food loss in the supply chain; as well as disclose the total weight of food loss in metric tons and the food loss percentage, by the organization’s main products or product category, and describe the methodology used for this calculation under the topic 13.9 Food Security. GRI 13 references World Resources Institute (WRI), Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard, 2016, which includes a methodology to calculate food loss.
Disclosures on impacts and the management of those impacts are of paramount importance. This is precisely why GRI incorporates food waste within its Standards. Learn more about the GRI Standards and access additional resources on the GRI North America webpage.
