Food waste “largely ignored” at COP26, according to FareShare.

According to charity FareShare, the issue of food waste has been “largely ignored” at the recent COP26 summit in Glasgow, despite a recent report from the Carbon Trust highlighting new data showing just how much food waste contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.

Data from the Carbon Trust report shows that for every 1 tonne of food waste shared with people, instead of being wasted, 1.6 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), will not have been waste fully emitted into the atmosphere.

The research also shows that for every tonne of food sent to charities and community initiatives, the needless loss of 1,525,000 litres of water needed to produce that food is also avoided. Using FareShare as ana example, last year they redistributed 35,000 tonnes of surplus food, which avoided 53 billion litres of water being wasted (more than the combined annual water usage of everyone in Coventry and Birmingham).

Recognising that food waste is a large contributor to CO2 emissions and that redistribution of food waste can also be used to look after wider society in the forms of meals for breakfast clubs, refuges, and other charitable projects, 53 MPs, including Catherine McKinnell, MP for Newcastle North, have recently written to the Prime Minister to call for the government to ta take action on food waste.

The MPs, representing both sides of the house, have called for £5m per year to offset the costs of redistributing food from farmers and business to charities and community initiatives. This money would help the UK to mitigate 124,378 tonnes of carbon.

Despite the research and the call for action from MPs, the issue of food waste was almost entirely ignored at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

James Persad, Head of Marketing and Engagement at FareShare, said: “Even if you take all the other big emitters out of the picture, food production alone would push the earth past 1.5 degrees of warming – yet food waste has effectively been frozen out of talks at COP26.

“Food is extraordinarily resource intensive to produce – which is why it’s heart-breaking to see so much of it being wasted – with all the energy and water used to create it wasted too. These Carbon Trust figures show, from a carbon and water saving perspective, that the best destination for edible food will always be people’s plates.

“Right now, an estimated 2m tonnes of perfectly good-to-eat food is wasted on UK farms – and, while it’s still cheaper for farmers to send that food to AD, animal feed or landfill than to charities, that will continue to be the case.

“Meaningful action on food waste will be crucial if we are to achieve Net Zero. We’re calling on government to take this issue seriously and commit to fair funding to enable food businesses do the right thing, morally and environmentally, with their surplus food.”

If you’d like to find out more about the causes of food waste and what you can do about it, its impact on the environment, and how to waste less yourself, read our previous blogs on the subject.