EU mandatory food waste targets consultation
Martin Bowman
Hi fellow food waste researchers!
Excitingly, there is potential that the EU will put forward a legislative proposal for binding food waste reduction targets for member states, from 2023. The European Commission has begun the process of scoping this out – and is looking for feedback on its initial Roadmap / Inception impact assessment – deadline for submissions 29 October, limited to 4,000 characters plus up to 5MB attachments. This is preliminary feedback, as a first step before a larger consultation planned for Q4 of 2021 (if you only have capacity for one consultation response, save yourself for this bigger consultation). There is a lot at stake, as some of the options they present are very weak – raising pressure for more ambitious action will be crucial!
Please find attached our template response to the EU mandatory food waste targets consultation, in case you find it helpful to copy/adapt for your own! (Abbreviations: MS = member states, FLW = food loss and waste).
Welcome any thoughts/comments/questions. Please do let me know if you think you’ll be able to respond.
You can respond to the consultation, and download the Inception impact assessment, here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13223-Food-waste-reduction-targets_en
The key points we especially ask you to support, if you agree, are:
- Option S1: For the scope of the 50% target to cover the whole supply chain, not just retail and consumer food waste (with additional mandatory measurement/reporting of food that is unharvested, ploughed back into the fields, and livestock mortalities, which are currently excluded from member state measurement – and integration of these into reduction targets once a baseline is obtained).
- Step 2 Option 3 (modified): For the Commission to model the effects of a 50% reduction in food loss and waste from farm to fork by 2030, and propose this as a legislative proposal. (not 40-50% as Commission suggests, so it is fully in line with SDG 12.3)
- For the Commission to consider the effects of food waste regulation when modelling the potential speed at which MS can reduce their food loss and waste – rather than considering voluntary agreements by businesses and consumer education as the upper limit on action that can be taken.
We have also supported the following points, but recommend that we find both E1 and E2, and T1 and T3 acceptable:
- Options E2 and T1/3 hybrid: To ensure the laws are binding at member state level, and ensure an overall 50% reduction in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, but ensure that MS with initially higher levels of food waste contribute larger reductions. We also find E1 (for a uniform 50% reduction in each MS) acceptable.
All the best,
Martin
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Martin Bowman
Hi everyone,
Just a quick reminder about this huge opportunity to win mandatory food waste targets across the EU! Deadline is 29th October.
In case it’s helpful to inspire your own responses, here’s Feedback’s full response (with slightly expanded 2-page response in PDF attachment via the link).
All the best,
Martin