WRI’s New “Food Loss and Waste Protocol” Offers Standardized Methodology to Address Food Wastage

By Rosaly Byrd-

This is a follow up to our blog post “From the UN to Your Dinner Table,” a piece The Sustainability Co-Op posted in late September about the impact of food waste on climate change. The UN’s FAO released a report that stated that about 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted annually and our article mentioned some of the things that we can do at home to avoid food waste. Well, organizations on the global level are also working to find ways to reduce waste. The World Resources Institute (WRI) announced yesterday the launch of an initiative that will be able to measure and monitor food loss in a “credible, practical and consistent manner”. It is called the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, and it offers a consistent and transparent way for both countries and companies alike to quantify food loss. The protocol helps define boundaries of what to measure as well as what types of data sources to use and which quantification methods are most appropriate. The Food Loss and Waste Protocol is a great first step in addressing food waste, as it will allow countries and companies to measure food loss and accurately report their results, while ensuring international consistency and standardization of this information.

The Food Loss and Waste Protocol will work with UNEP’s “Think, Eat, Save” program, and retail food providers have also already shown their support for this new protocol. It will be interesting to see how governments and the private sector will utilize this instrument, but it’s great to already have the development of an initiative like this, only a little over a month after the FAO’s report was released. To learn more about the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, check out WRI’s site here.