Coalition on Food is Never Waste

Coalition on Food is Never Waste
- To halve food waste by 2030 and to reduce food losses by at least 25%.
- To create more sustainable and resilient food systems that seek to ensure food loss and waste are minimized.
- To build and strengthen collaboration throughout food systems, between member states and organisations to ensure learning and sharing of best practice.
- To promote investment in food loss and waste reduction.
Science based evidence to prioritize this coalition
- Around 1/3 of food produced is never consumed because it is either lost or wasted. There is evidence (UNEP FW Index report 2021) that household food waste is a global problem and not just a problem in developed countries. There is also increasing evidence that food loss is also a global problem and not just a problem in developing countries (WWF Farm Loss Report, 2021).
- This level of food loss and waste accounts for around 8-10% of global GHG emissions, consumes ¼ of the world’s freshwater use by agriculture and requires farmland greater than the size of China. At the same time 1 in 10 people go to bed hungry every day and undernourishment is on the increase globally.
- FLW reduction is consistently mentioned amongst the most effective interventions for food systems transformation and improvement on multiple SDGs.
- There is a huge body of scientific evidence on the subject of food loss and waste and on the effectiveness of interventions. Some specific examples are below.
UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021 https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-indexreport-2021
FAO http://www.fao.org/3/ca6030en/ca6030en.pdf
WWF Farm Loss Report https://www.wwf.eu/?4049841/fifteen-per-cent-of-food-is-lost-before-leavingthe-farm-WWF-report
World Resources Institute, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, Setting a Global Action Agenda, 2019;
https://www.wri.org/research/reducing-food-loss-and-waste-setting-global-action-agenda
Mechanisms of implementation
Coalition members will:
- Prioritise food loss and waste reduction
- Adopt an evidence based systemic approach to reduce food loss and waste (e.g. such as the Target, Measure, Act approach)
- Assess FLW levels, set national targets, and identify and implement prioritised initiatives
- Monitor, report and share learning
- Foster collaboration and support other countries and organisations where appropriate.
For countries that are just starting to prioritize reducing food loss and waste, we propose a multi-step approach starting with an initial assessment, including baseline measurement using the Food Loss and Food Waste Indices where possible, followed by strategy development, budgeting/fundraising, and decision making, and finishing with implementation of agreed initiatives and monitoring.
Some of the benefits of working through a coalition are that it will:
- Convene participating countries, cities and companies to help build institutional capacity to inspire and learn from each other
- Provide learning opportunities, ‘how to’ guidance, support on business and financial model development, proven tools e.g. for measuring and follow up methods, and leadership on each component
- Bring companies (e.g. from the Consumer Goods Forum and World Business Council for Development) to join in national efforts ensuring private sector investment as well as government and other investment
- Facilitate networking among grassroots influencers, large organisations, farmers, cooperatives, SMEs, civil society and public institutions to support FLW reduction. Thus, providing a platform for action-oriented alliances
- Promote gender responsive and culturally adapted FLW interventions which have a great chance of being effective and to have long lasting impact
- Ensure at least equal access and benefit from these measures for smallholder farmers, women, youth and minorities
- Mobilise new financial resources into efforts to reduce FLW
- Advocate and help raise awareness among a broader spectrum of stakeholders including private citizens. Awareness raising will help trigger a ‘FLW reduction movement’ in which countries, companies and people do not want to be ‘left out’ when they see their peers joining that movement
- Help monitor progress, publicly profile successes and maintain momentum
Strategic partners
- Member states:
• US, Brazil, Indonesia, Italy, Ecuador
• Future potential members include key regional organisations: G7, G20, as well as over 30 member states including UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Chile, Australia - UN agencies/IFIs: FAO, UNEP, the World Bank, regional development banks
- NGOs: WRI, WRAP, WWF, Global Foodbanking Network
- Academia/Think Tank/Research Centre: Wageningen University, CGIAR
Others: Champions 12.3, Rabobank
Monitoring and Evaluation
Each of the initiatives in the overall cluster will have identified lead organisations which will provide coordination, support and monitoring for the specific initiatives. Many of these organisations are already running initiatives in this area so this work will build on those e.g. FAO and Champions 12.3.
There will be regular reviews by all the lead organisations to maintain an overview across all initiatives.
Existing initiatives, coalitions and platforms will be used and developed to provide mechanisms for reporting and sharing learning etc. including:
- the Food Coalition launched by FAO in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
- the FAO hosted G20 technical platform http://www.fao.org/platform-food-loss-waste/en/
- the UNEP Think Eat Save campaign https://www.unep.org/thinkeatsave/
- World Bank country assessments
- Champions 12.3 website and annual reports https://champions123.org/
https://champions123.org/publication/sdg-target-123-food-loss-and-waste-2020-progress-report
Express your interest in joining this coalition
Focal point contacts
- Liz Goodwin
liz.goodwin@wri.org - Yolanda Kakabadse
yolandakn@gmail.com - Yasaman Matinroshan
Yasaman.Matinroshan@fao.org - Clementine O’Connor
clementine.oconnor@un.org
A Coalition for Food Systems Transformation through Agroecology
-To implement agroecological and regenerative agriculture approaches, as a key lever to transform food systems by operationalizing the 13 principles of agroecology set out in the HLPE report (which embrace the FAO 10 Elements of agroecology adopted by 197 countries).
-To apply the agroecological principles globally, supporting local innovation, thereby making a major contribution to achieving the SDGs in a holistic, integrated way.
A Coalition of Action for Achieving Zero Hunger
The coalition aims to achieve ending hunger, in a sustainable and nutritious way. While doing this, it will generate co-benefits: meeting the Paris climate emission targets and doubling the income of 545 million food producers.
A Global Action Agenda to Advance Nature-Postive Innovation
This coalition will unleash the potential of nature-positive innovation, i.e. innovation that spurs agricultural productivity growth while contributing to positive environmental and socio-economic outcomes.
Better Data Better Decisions for Nature-Positive Production
Better data can drive better decisions for nature-positive production when is it relevant and aligned to the needs of critical stakeholders (local, national, global) protecting, managing, restoring, and investing in landscapes. This coalition will align data, stakeholders, and evidence as a catalyst for sustainable landscapes and food systems transformation.
Climate Resilient Food Systems (CRFS)
This CRFS Alliance provides a platform for achieving climate resilient food systems by synergizing efforts across the different actors who are part of the alliance. The mission of the alliance is to join forces to accelerate action towards climate resilient, sustainable, equitable and inclusive food systems in a coherent manner, focusing on the most vulnerable countries and regions, in particular arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), small island developing States (SIDS), land-locked developing countries (LLDCs) and least developed countries (LDCs).
Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH)
The main objective of the Coalition of Action 4 Soil Health (CA4SH) is to improve soil health globally by addressing critical implementation, monitoring, policy, and public and private investment barriers that constrain farmers from adopting and scaling healthy soil practices.
Coalition of Action on Decent Work and Living Incomes and Wages for All Food Systems Workers
The Coalition of Action advances equitable livelihoods by promoting labour and human rights and increasing opportunities for decent and productive employment within the agri-food sector, including achieving 100% living incomes and wages, thereby ensuring economic and social justice and the right to adequate and nutritious food for all food systems workers.
Coalition on Family Farming and on Strengthening Actions in Support of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (CFF)
The CFF promotes a renewed effort towards the development and effective implementation of policies, strategies, programmes and investment aimed at overcoming the structural barriers faced by family farmers and that hamper the full display of their transformative potential.
Coalition on Food is Never Waste
– To halve food waste by 2030 and to reduce food losses by at least 25%.
– To create more sustainable and resilient food systems that seek to ensure food loss and waste are minimized.
– To build and strengthen collaboration throughout food systems, between member states and organisations to ensure learning and sharing of best practice.
– To promote investment in food loss and waste reduction.
Coalition on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Food Systems
-Ensure that the importance of urban food systems transformation
-Create space for dialogue
-Leverage stakeholders’ knowledge and experiences and ensure the production, management and distribution of appropriate data
-Mobilise and leverage resources
-Promote linkages between national and sub-national governments
-Leverage and promote coherence of actions
Coalition on Sustainable Productivity Growth for Food Security and Resource Conservation
This coalition will accelerate the transition to more sustainable food systems through a holistic approach to agricultural productivity growth that considers tradeoffs and optimizes agricultural sustainability across social, economic, and environmental dimensions.
Coalition to Promote Territorial Food Systems Governance
During the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), territorial governance emerged as an important theme from national, regional, and independent food systems dialogues (FSDs) as well as from all Action Tracks. They all emphasized the importance of a multi-level governance architecture allowing, amongst other aspects, increased stakeholders’ coordination and policy and program coherence to transform our food systems.
Fighting Food Crises Along the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus
-Create the conditions and enabling structures for an approach to food systems resilience in fragile contexts that is comprehensive in addressing challenges at national, regional and global levels, socially and politically inclusive in its application, and relevant across the humanitarian, development and peace domains;
-Strengthen resilience, reduce hunger and enhance the prospects for peace through collaborative efforts designed to prevent, anticipate, absorb, adapt and transform in response to shocks;
-Strengthen and bring coherence to risk management and food security information systems and critical crisis response and early warning tools in fragile contexts.
Global Sustainable Livestock Coalition
The ultimate objective is to support decision making at all levels for farmer- and value-chain-oriented national/bioregional development of sustainable livestock systems. Livestock systems and value-chains contribute to many of the UN SDGs and all the UN FSS Action Tracks.
Halting Deforestation & Conversion from Agricultural Commodities
The aim of the coalition is to bring together a broad group of producer and consumer countries, companies and international and national civil society organizations committed to working together to deliver deforestation- and conversion-free food supply chains as part of a new model of agricultural production that optimizes food production, enhances rural livelihoods, and protects and restores the natural environment.
Indigenous People’s Food Systems
Ensure understanding, respect, recognition, inclusion and protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems (IPFS) post UNFSS, providing evidence about their “game-changing and systemic” aspects.
Land and Freshwater Nexus
The Land-freshwater Nexus Cluster Coalition proposes a systematic, collaborative approach to manage land and water resources. It proposes the development of incentives and initiatives that promote integrated land and water resources management in food systems to protect watersheds and conserve surface and groundwater resources.
Making Food Systems Work for Women and Girls
The goal of the coalition is to ensure that women and men, boys and girls, and other groups have equitable roles, responsibilities, opportunities, and choices, and that countries, communities and households, individuals are equipped to participate in local, global and regional food systems activities in a meaningful, dignified, and equitable way.
Public Development Banks Coalition
The 2020 Finance in Common Summit (FICS) underscored the importance of Public Development Banks (PDBs) and the need to help them scale up financing to support inclusive and sustainable agriculture and food systems transformation.
Resilient Local Food Supply Chains Alliance
The Alliance will be a platform for collaboration among partners for enhanced implementation capacities in national and sub-national systems; facilitating access to peer knowledge, experiences and best practices; brokering collaborative engagements and partnerships along common issues; negotiating technical assistance and tools for programmes’ development; promoting blended public-private actions to support national programme development along identified national pathways to 2030 and beyond, including regional development priorities.
Resizing the Livestock Industry
The objective of this coalition for action is to create a broad-based multi-stakeholder coalition to develop, model and implement cohesive and integrated measures that promote consumption and production of affordable, healthy diets within safe planetary boundaries from nature-positive agriculture with all animal-source foods deriving from systems providing a good quality of life for farmed animals.
Restoring Grasslands, Shrublands and Savannahs through Sustainable Extensive Livestock-based Food Systems
The coalition will lead action to restore grasslands, shrublands and savannahs through sustainable extensive livestock-based food systems to help optimize environmental resource use in production, reduce biodiversity loss, pollution, water use, soil degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.
School Meals Coalition: Nutrition, Health and Education for Every Child
Improve the quality and expand the scale of school meals programmes globally as a platform to reach communities, simultaneously transforming food, education, social protection and health systems.
Social Protection for Food Systems Transformation Consortium
The institutions, governments and partners to this consortium will endeavour to support countries to (1) forge and enhance the linkages and synergies between national social protection and food systems, and (2) capitalize on the advances made in social protection during the COVID-19 response to guide and inform recovery and efforts to ‘build forward better’.
The Coalition for Aquatic/Blue Foods
Realize the full potential of sustainable blue, or aquatic, foods – such as fish, shellfish, aquatic plants and algae, captured or cultivated in freshwater or marine ecosystems – to help end malnutrition and build nature-positive, equitable and resilient food systems.
The Coalition of Action for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children & All
The shared vision of the coalition is a world where all people are eating healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The aim is that healthy diets are available, affordable, and accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable to malnutrition and those living in vulnerable circumstances.
The Coalition to Repurpose Public Support to Food and Agriculture
The objective of this coalition is to support countries who have indicated a desire to repurpose their forms of public agricultural support by helping them a) identify which public support measures are exacerbating climate, environment, and development challenges, and b) redesign these measures, not only to ‘do no harm’ but to help improve food and nutrition security, strengthen soil and water quality, increase biodiversity, build resilience, and mitigate climate change.
The True Value of Food Initiative
Our food needs to become healthier, more sustainable and accessible for all. But there will be no ‘trigger’ for change as long as healthy and sustainable food is unaffordable to billions, unsustainable food is cheap and profitable, and the impact of food on people and planet is hidden.