URGENT: EU consultation - 6th June deadline

[Martin Bowman]

Hi fellow food waste researchers,

 

There’s a really important EU consultation, with deadline of 6^th June (sorry for late notice!) – if any of you have worked on projects that achieved fast reductions in food waste, particularly at scale, it would be hugely helpful for you to respond to this survey – doing so is likely to have an influence on how ambitious the EU sets its legally binding food waste targets for EU member states (see below).

 

Background:

The European Commission will later this year propose legally binding food waste reduction targets for all EU member states – a huge development! But there’s a lot at stake: mainly whether the target is set at 50% food waste reduction by 2030, or a less ambitious level (could be as low at 15%!), or whether the target is just for consumer and retail food waste, or covers the whole supply chain. We want 50% farm to fork!

 

The Commission’s decision of what target to promote is largely a political one – but they are insulating it from much democratic civil society scrutiny and presenting it as a largely technical decision based on an assessment of the costs/benefits of different food waste initiatives. Lots of member states will NOT want to be legally bound into ambitious targets – and we’re afraid that the Commission will hide behind the argument that based on historical rates of food waste reduction, it isn’t technically feasible to require member states to achieve 50% reductions by 2030.

 

The survey:

This survey is one of the only chances to prove to the Commission that fast food waste reduction IS possible, and refute people who’ll argue that ambitious targets are unrealistic. They have to factor submissions to the consultation into their impact assessment, so we want to flood the consultation response with proof fast food waste reduction is achievable at scale.

 

That’s why we’re asking you to:

• Fill out the survey by Monday 6^th June with as many concrete examples of projects you’ve worked on where:
• Food waste reduction has been achieved quickly, and ideally at scale
• Wherever possible, pick examples from your EU-based operations. Think non-EU examples are acceptable, but might carry less weight.
• We want to especially encourage examples where food waste has been prevented from arising in the first place at scale in primary production, manufacturing and catering – as these are the most contentious for the Commission
• Submit as many projects as you’ve been involved with that are relevant!
• If you have large corporate partners who you know have delivered fast large-scale food waste reduction, please share this survey with them as soon as possible, and encourage them to fill it out by the deadline (or if you partnered with them on the project, even better you could submit info on the initiative yourself). This is a chance for corporates to show off the success of their food waste initiatives, and win recognition from the European Commission!

 

The survey requires a fair bit of detail on costs, exact amounts of food waste reduced, etc. so you might need to set aside a bit of time to dig through records – but I can’t highlight enough how important these EU targets will be, so it’s definitely worth your time.

 

Please do let me know if you need any support – I’m reachable at mar...@feedbackglobal.org.

 

We’ll also be raising some political pressure on this process, watch this space.

 

Solidarity and soup,

Martin

 

Feedback works for food that is good for the planet and its people.   Martin Bowman Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager T: +44 (0) 2030518633 M: +44 (0) 7816088210  http://feedbackglobal.org/ Pronouns: he/him

Donate to help build a better food system.

Join our mailing list.

Registered Charity No: 1155064

 

[Martin Bowman]

Hi everyone,

 

We have a great response to the call out for consultation submissions, so thank you if you submitted or shared this message!

 

I have a related request, which should be a lot less time consuming: Feedback are collating examples of where food waste reductions of 5% (or more) per year have been achieved. This will be vital to convincing the European Commission that a 50% reduction in food waste by 2030 is achievable. If you know of any examples of a business or a sector, particularly in an EU country (e.g. the manufacturing sector in Germany) that has achieved a 5% per year or more reduction in food waste over a given period, we’d be really grateful if you could share any of these examples with us. It can be very top-line info, e.g. "Business A achieved x% reductions in food waste between y and z year (equal to x tonnes), in the primary production/catering/manufacturing sector, through B method." Ideally include the source/link for this information (with page number if it’s a report).

 

You might know examples from your own business or another, a business you work with, or you might know of examples from your research.

 

We will collate these examples and use them in advocacy and policy briefings. Any help would be hugely appreciated! If appropriate, please share this with anyone who you think might be able to help – they can contact me at mar...@feedbackglobal.org

 

If any of you are based in EU countries and interested in raising pressure for more ambitious legally binding targets for EU member states, also please get in touch with me and we can help!

 

All the best,

Martin