During Champions 12.3’s annual Climate Week event, there were some important updates shared around their progress in addressing the food waste challenge, both in terms of what successes we’ve seen and what’s left to achieve our goals in fighting food waste. But first, a little background on Champions 12.3: who they are and what this challenge is all about!
At the 2015 United Nations General Assembly, countries from around the world formally adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
The goal? SDG 12 aims to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. One target of this goal (Target 12.3, specifically) calls for cutting global food waste in half at the retail and consumer level, as well as reducing food losses along production and supply chains (including post-harvest losses) by 2030.
To help make this target a reality, the “No More Food to Waste” summit proposed the development of a group of executives who would champion the cause of achieving SDG Target 12.3. Hence, the name Champions 12.3.
Apeel is proud to be one of the “Friends of Champions 12.3” as an organization that is part of the global momentum working to halve food waste by 2030. Our company mission and the goals of Champions 12.3 are in complete alignment.
Progress toward our goals
During Climate Week, the fifth annual progress report was shared, assessing advances by governments and companies over the past 12 months, October 2019 to September 2020.
This progress is relative to a three-step approach for reducing food loss and waste, Target-Measure-Act:
- A country or company sets a food loss and waste reduction target,
- Measures its food loss and waste to identify hot spots, and
- Takes action to reduce the hot spots of food loss and waste.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Progress in the United Kingdom is suggesting that achieving the target is possible and even profitable. The UK has reduced food loss during storage, processing, and distribution, as well as food waste downstream in the supply chain by 27 percent from 2007 to 2018 — meaning the UK is more than halfway to hitting their country target.
- How has the UK done it? Through public-private partnerships, comprehensive consumer behavior change campaigns, and innovative policy shifts.
- Companies are making progress too, with the Champions noting how Tesco (Central Europe), Campbell, and Arla Foods have achieved food loss and waste reductions of more than 25 percent.
What’s left to do
- According to the Champions progress report there are larger challenges ahead: “With just 10 years to go, the world overall is woefully behind where it needs to be if it is to achieve SDG Target 12.3 by 2030.”
- More governments and businesses need to take action, first by setting targets to reduce their own food loss and waste.
- In light of this need, one of the most exciting Climate Week announcements came from a group of the world’s largest food retailers and providers. These ten food retailers and providers are leading the groundbreaking “10x20x30” initiative, with each having engaged at least 20 suppliers to halve food loss and waste by 2030. This means that the companies are not only reducing food loss and waste in their own operations, but partnering with their suppliers to expand these efforts in their upstream supply chains.
How Apeel can help
Apeel is dedicated to helping retailers and growers fight food waste. Given that fresh fruits and vegetables have an almost 50% waste rate due to their highly perishable nature, they are one of the biggest priorities in terms of finding a sustainable solution. And because Apeel allows produce to last twice as long, it’s the perfect answer to achieving the goals of the Champions 12.3’s Food Waste Challenge.
For more information on this initiative, click below.
