Nearly one-fifth of the food produced globally in 2022 was wasted, despite one-third of the world’s population facing hunger. According to the U.N. Environment Program’s Food Waste Index Report, out of the 1.05 billion tons of food waste, 60 percent came from households, while the food service and retail sectors were responsible for 28 percent and 12 percent, respectively. This report comes as the U.N. is monitoring countries’ progress in halving food waste by 2030 under the Sustainable Development Goals, with Japan being among only four countries in the G20 and European Union with suitable waste estimates for tracking this progress.
On average, each person discards 79 kilograms of food annually, equivalent to 1.3 meals per day for those impacted by hunger globally, with almost 30 percent of the global population facing food insecurity. Japan’s food waste decreased by 31 percent in 2020 compared to 2008, highlighting a positive step towards achieving the goal set by the Sustainable Development Goals to halve food waste by 2030. The report also brought attention to the impact of food loss and waste on climate change, generating about 8-10% annual global greenhouse gas emissions.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen emphasized that unnecessary waste causes significant costs to both development and nature’s sustainability issues and called on G20 countries to lead international cooperation and policy development towards achieving this goal while sharing expertise with other countries just starting to address this issue.