Food waste is a global concern already identified to be addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (12.3) and the EU policy agenda under the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Green Deal within the Farm to Fork Strategy. The EU has committed to halving food waste at the retail and consumer level following SDG 12.3, establishing legally binding reduction targets and enabling their reach through the setting of baseline measurement and uniform monitoring. Across the Member States, most food waste occurs at the consumer level. Therefore, reducing consumer food waste is critical for achieving future EU-level targets for food waste reduction. Consumer food waste (both in- and out-of-home) - whilst influenced by the food supply chain and food environment - is essentially a behavioural issue. The behavioural factors underlying consumers' decisions to discard food need to be uncovered, and consumer-focused interventions have to be adequately designed to deliver on the ambitious target reduction. To address the existing research gaps, the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) established a multi-disciplinary forum of researchers and practitioners in the area of consumer food waste prevention under the pilot project called the European Consumer Food Waste Forum (ECFWF). The ECFWF will issue research- and evidence-based recommendations and develop tools to help reduce consumer food waste, aiming to produce a compendium of best practices and recommendations to facilitate the uptake of effective interventions. To this end, there was the need to 1) define the scope, i.e., the type of interventions, tools, best practices and recommendations to be explored, and 2) to develop an evaluation framework specifically tailored for consumer interventions. This has been done by 1) conducting several literature reviews on the state of the art of intervention evaluation and available frameworks, and on the main food drivers and levers of consumer food waste, 2) organising a virtual workshop, meetings and gathering written feedback on the discussed topics from ECFWF members. This report outlines the scope of the ECFWF and the evaluation framework for consumer food waste prevention interventions. The latter is complemented with a data protocol for the collection of information on interventions and some selected tools, best practices, and recommendations agreed under the scope of the ECFWF.

Approximately 30 percent of the edible food produced in the United States is wasted and a significant portion of this waste occurs at the consumer level. Despite food's essential role as a source of nutrients and energy and its emotional and cultural importance, U.S. consumers waste an estimated average of 1 pound of food per person per day at home and in places where they buy and consume food away from home. Many factors contribute to this wasteâ€"consumers behaviors are shaped not only by individual and interpersonal factors but also by influences within the food system, such as policies, food marketing and the media. Some food waste is unavoidable, and there is substantial variation in how food waste and its impacts are defined and measured. But there is no doubt that the consequences of food waste are severe: the wasting of food is costly to consumers, depletes natural resources, and degrades the environment. In addition, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has severely strained the U.S. economy and sharply increased food insecurity, it is predicted that food waste will worsen in the short term because of both supply chain disruptions and the closures of food businesses that affect the way people eat and the types of food they can afford. A National Strategy to Reduce Food Waste at the Consumer Level identifies strategies for changing consumer behavior, considering interactions and feedbacks within the food system. It explores the reasons food is wasted in the United States, including the characteristics of the complex systems through which food is produced, marketed, and sold, as well as the many other interconnected influences on consumers' conscious and unconscious choices about purchasing, preparing, consuming, storing, and discarding food. This report presents a strategy for addressing the challenge of reducing food waste at the consumer level from a holistic, systems perspective.

This book presents what is the state-of-the-art in the field of the food waste phenomenon at consumer level, including a thorough literature review, and it highlights trends in the field. It provides a comprehensive starting point for future research. Food waste represents a major public policy issue, which is included in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In this context, the present work identifies the most important definitions given to food waste and its environmental, social and economic impacts. With a comprehensive literature review that covers a forty-year time span (1977-2017), this book highlights the multiple, complex facets of food waste at the consumer level. Drawing from behavioural and marketing theories, it proposes a new theoretical framework with the aim to better explain food waste behaviour. Extensive research is being carried out on the main worldwide initiatives (both public and private) and food policies aimed at tackling the phenomenon.

The EU has committed to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 12.3, which calls for halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030 and reducing food losses along the food production and supply chains. As part of the Farm-to-Fork Strategy, the Commission intends to propose legally binding targets to reduce food waste levels and accelerate the EU's progress towards the global target. The first EU-wide monitoring of food waste levels, based on a common methodology, has established a new baseline against which the EU can assess progress made over time. Over half of the food waste generated in the EU occurs at the consumption stage, as highlighted in findings reported by Member States referring to the year 2020. Targeting consumer food waste is therefore critical for achieving the future EU-level targets for food waste reduction and complying with international sustainable development efforts. Consumer food waste (both in and out of the home) is a multifaceted and complex issue influenced by food supply chain dynamics and the food environment and driven by behavioural aspects. To address the issue in a timely manner, many groups have carried out interventions to reduce food waste and/or support consumer behavioural change, but the efficiency and effectiveness of those interventions have not been consistently evaluated. To evaluate these interventions, the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) established a multi-disciplinary forum of researchers and practitioners working in the area of consumer food waste prevention under a pilot project called the European Consumer Food Waste Forum (ECFWF). As part of the project's tasks, the ECFWF has gathered data and evaluated 78 interventions across the EU and beyond, prioritising the analysis of interventions within the scope of the ECFWF (i.e. examining only certain types of interventions). The results show that the majority of these interventions were successful in either reducing food waste quantities or changing behaviour, thus indicating that deploying well-designed and monitored behavioural change approaches can lead to substantial reductions in food waste on a large scale, as has been shown in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The extent of the impact varies between interventions and not all are likely to be scalable to the country or regional level. The results also suggest that the success of behavioural change interventions greatly depends on the combination of practices put in place (such as a combination of nudges and awareness-raising campaigns) and on the collaboration and commitment from stakeholders implementing the intervention, including from policymakers at all levels. The practical output of this project consists of the development of an evaluation framework to assess the performance of behavioural change interventions, which can be applied by researchers and practitioners in order to understand the possible impact of new interventions. Evaluation is crucial to transferring knowledge on the implementation of effective interventions and to understanding the potential scalability and the cost-effectiveness of different approaches. The results of this analysis also suggest that resources should be made available to assess the impact of interventions over the medium- to long-term to fill the knowledge gap on the longevity and sustainability of any food waste reduction or the development of new 'low-waste' social norms.

This book focuses on the crucial sustainability challenge of reducing food waste at the level of consumer-society. Providing an in-depth, research-based overview of the multifaceted problem, it considers environmental, economic, social and ethical factors. Perspectives included in the book address households, consumers, and organizations, and their role in reducing food waste. Rather than focusing upon the reasons for food waste itself, the chapters develop research-based solutions for the problem, providing a much-needed solution-orientated approach that takes multiple perspectives into account. Chapters 1, 2, 12 and 16 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

• New York Times bestseller • The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world “At this point in time, the Drawdown book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis. Reported by-effects include increased determination and a sense of grounded hope.” —Per Espen Stoknes, Author, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming “There’s been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom.” —David Roberts, Vox “This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook—only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook.” —Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.

In recent years, food waste has risen to the top of the political and public agenda, yet until now there has been no scholarly analysis applied to the topic as a complement and counter-balance to campaigning and activist approaches. Using ethnographic material to explore global issues, Food Waste unearths the processes that lie behind the volume of food currently wasted by households and consumers. The author demonstrates how waste arises as a consequence of households negotiating the complex and contradictory demands of everyday life, explores the reasons why surplus food ends up in the bin, and considers innovative solutions to the problem. Drawing inspiration from studies of consumption and material culture alongside social science perspectives on everyday life and the home, this lively yet scholarly book is ideal for students and researchers from a wide range of disciplines, along with anyone interested in understanding the food that we waste.