Indicator 12.3.1 (a) Food loss index and (b) food waste index

Indicator 12.3.1: (a) Food loss index and (b) food waste index

Target 12.3: By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Definitions:

Food waste is food and associated inedible parts removed from the human food supply chain in the following sectors: retail and other distribution of food; food service (restaurants, schools, hospitals, other canteens, etc.); and households. “Removed from the human food supply chain” means one of the following end destinations: landfill, controlled combustion, sewer, litter/discards/ refuse, co/anaerobic digestion, compost/aerobic digestion or land application.

The indicator aims to measure the total amount of food that is wasted in tonnes. It complements SDG 12.3.1(a) on Food Loss (which is under the custodianship of FAO). Both indicators look to divide the food value chain and measure the efficiency of the food system.

The food waste indicator is calculated at two levels, which are presented in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Two levels of indicator 12.3.1(b) on food waste

Concepts:

Food: Any substance — whether processed, semi-processed, or raw — that is intended for human consumption. “Food” includes drink and any substance that has been used in the manufacture, preparation, or treatment of food. “Food” also includes material that has spoiled and is therefore no longer fit for human consumption. It does not include cosmetics, tobacco, or substances used only as drugs. It does not include processing agents used along the food supply chain, for example, water to clean or cook raw materials in factories or at home.

Inedible (or non-edible) parts: Components associated with a food that, in a particular food supply chain, are not intended to be consumed by humans. Examples of inedible parts associated with food could include bones, rinds, and pits/stones. “Inedible parts” do not include packaging. What is considered inedible varies among users (e.g., chicken feet are consumed in some food supply chains but not others), changes over time, and is influenced by a range of variables including culture, socio-economic factors, availability, price, technological advances, international trade, and geography.

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) includes waste originating from households, commerce, and trade, small businesses, office buildings and institutions (schools, hospitals, government buildings). It also includes bulky waste (e.g., old furniture, mattresses) and waste from selected municipal services, e.g., waste from park and garden maintenance, waste from street cleaning services (street sweepings, the content of litter containers, market cleansing waste), if managed as waste. Further information on municipal solid waste is defined in the SDG indicator methodology for 11.6.1.

Percent (%)

Tonnes

KG

Level 1 indicator: Indicators estimated by international organisations using country data from different sources.

Level 2 indicator: Data provided by national governments, including National Statistical Offices (NSOs), Ministries of Environment and other relevant organizations.

National Statistical Offices, relevant ministries and other oranizations

The challenge resulting from the flexible approach to presenting a methodology is one of consistency and comparability. Can one compare between levels or across methods? Not directly and not without caveats. It is possible to compare at regional levels where the random error is relatively high (e.g. around 25%) for each country but it would not be appropriate to compare countries against each other unless there was a much greater difference in their estimates than the combined amount of error. The approach to consistency is one of transparency against a framework.

Different methods of quantification can also be used for other relevant and related purposes (for example, “where are the greatest opportunities within the waste that is produced to reduce it?”). Taking in-home consumption as an example, it is difficult to obtain reasons for discarding food (and therefore the opportunities for influencing citizen behaviour) without the use of diaries or ethnography. However, direct weighing of waste volumes could give a significantly more accurate quantity.

For the purpose of this indicator, the methodology aims to estimate the amount of food in total waste stream.

For level 1, the global modelling approach estimates a proportion of food in the total waste stream data (e.g., municipal solid waste (MSW)) and applies the proportion to the total. The work on this model utilizes the existing efforts to compile information for SDG 11.6.1 on MSW management and utilizes existing information on global waste, including World Bank publication “What a Waste 2.0, A Global Snapshot of Solid Waste Management to 2050”. Some countries publish data on the ratio of food waste to the total MSW. The existing data are used to create a regional coefficient for each SDG sub-region. These regional coefficients then applies to the data for 11.6.1 and “What a Waste” data to fill data gaps.

Note that when a country reports data then no global estimation will be done, the country data will be used directly.

For level 2, countries should identify the scope of which stages of the supply chain can be covered and estimate the total amount of food wasted for each supply chain stream. The amount of food waste within a stage of the food supply chain shall be established by measuring food waste generated by a sample of food business operators or households in accordance with any of the following methods, or a combination of those methods, or any other method equivalent in terms of relevance, representativeness, and reliability.

Table 2: Methods of measurement of food waste at different stages of the food supply chain

The food waste index is calculated according to the following approach:

${Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_t=\frac{{Total\mathrm{\ }foodwaste}_t}{{Annual\mathrm{\ }Average\mathrm{\ }Population}_t}$

where:

t = year

Total food waste is the sum of waste in three sectors in a given year as per the formula below:

${Total\mathrm{\ }food\mathrm{\ }waste}_t=\mathrm{\ }{FW}_{{Households}_t\mathrm{\ }}+\mathrm{\ }{FW}_{{Food\mathrm{\ }service\mathrm{\ }}_t}+\mathrm{\ }{FW}_{{Retail}_t}$

The Food Waste Index for the year in question is then calculated as food waste per capita in that year divided by food waste per capita in a baseline year (t₀) multiplied by 100 to express the result as a percentage:

${Food\mathrm{\ }Waste\mathrm{\ }Index}_t=\mathrm{\ }\frac{{Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_t\mathrm{\ }}{{Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_{t_0}}\mathrm{\ }\times \mathrm{\ }100$

In countries where it is not possible to obtain the detailed data necessary to estimate total food waste using the formula above, a simplified approach to calculating food waste per capita may be taken:

${Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_{t_{simp}}=\frac{{MSW\mathrm{\ }generated}_t\mathrm{\ }\times \mathrm{\ }{Share\mathrm{\ }of\mathrm{\ }food\mathrm{\ }waste}_t}{{Annual\mathrm{\ }Average\mathrm{\ }Population}_t}$

where:

t = year

${MSW\mathrm{\ }generated}_t$ is total municipal solid waste generated in a given year (as calculated for Indicator 11.6.1)

${Share\mathrm{\ }of\mathrm{\ }food\mathrm{\ }waste}_t$ is the proportion of total MSW made up of food waste in the year, which can be estimated from waste composition studies

The food waste index for the year is then calculated using the simplified estimate of food waste per capita in the same formula as above:

${Food\mathrm{\ }Waste\mathrm{\ }Index}_{t_{simp}}=\mathrm{\ }\frac{{Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_{t_{simp}}\mathrm{\ }}{{Food\mathrm{\ }waste\mathrm{\ }per\mathrm{\ }capita}_{{t_0}_{simp}}}\mathrm{\ }\times \mathrm{\ }100$

2024-07-29

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

11.6.1, 12.3.1(a), 12.5.1