Launch of the 2021 Food Waste Index Report 
Thursday 4 March 2021, 09:30 US ET / 14:30 GMT / 15:30 CET

The United Nations Environment Programme will launch the 2021 Food Waste Index Report during a media briefing Thursday 4 March with high-level participation from governments, cities and the private sector. 

Substantial amounts of food are produced but not eaten by humans, with negative impacts environmentally, socially and economically. Estimates suggest 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed. 

Reducing food waste at the retail, foodservice and household level can provide multi-faceted benefits for both people and the planet.

However, the true scale of food waste and its impacts have not been well understood until now. As such, the opportunities provided by food waste reduction have remained largely untapped and under-exploited. 

Tackling the problem seriously requires greater efforts to measure food and inedible parts wasted at the retail and consumer level, and to track food waste generation in kilograms per capita at the country level.

Reliable data is needed to track progress against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 12.3: Halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.