Its Impact and Limitations on Sustainable Consumption Policies
I. Introduction
Sustainable consumption is one of the priority areas in the international development agenda. In 2015, 193 UN member states undersigned the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which consists of seventeen interlinked Sustainable Development Goals. It is a comprehensive development framework that also focuses on “responsible consumption and production.” However, it is a strategic-level document, which did not take into account the operational-level challenges for developing indicators to measure the progress towards these goals. In 2021, United Nations Environment Program published its first Food Waste Index (FWI) report, which is presented as the most comprehensive report on global food waste and made many news headlines.[1][2] The UNEP has done an enormous job building the groundwork for producing global data on food waste, but the organization attributes low or very low confidence level to nearly 80% of the data used to construct the FWI. Given the context, the FWI is not a reliable benchmark for either measuring progress or informing adequate policy decisions.
II. Background
In September 2015, at the landmark UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York, countries worldwide agreed on a post-2015 global development agenda “to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people and the world by 2030.”[3] They agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which are broken down into 169 SDG Targets, which in turn have 232 unique indicators (as of February 2022) to track progress.[4] Particularly, SDG 12 focuses on “responsible consumption and production,” which is about “decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource efficiency and promoting sustainable lifestyles.”[5] There are eight targets under SDG 12, which mainly focus on national policies and big-scale producers, but two of them are about consumer behavior and thus fall within the scope of our research. Target 12.3: reduce food losses along production and supply chains and halve global per capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels;[6] and, 12.8: promote universal understanding of sustainable lifestyles.
SDG Target 12.3 has two indicators: the Food Loss Index produced by Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and Food Waste Index produced by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The Food Loss Index (FLI) measures the percentage of food loss from production up to (but not including) retail level. Food Waste Index (FWI) focuses on the percentage of food wasted at the retail and consumption stages. Since the focus of this paper is on sustainable consumption, I will take a closer look at the Food Waste Index, analyze the data behind it, and assess its impact.
After carefully examining the datasets used for the Food Waste Index, I concluded that existing data are not reliable enough for measuring the progress towards SDG Target 12.3, and advancing tailored policy interventions. However, these conclusions should not undermine the importance of the food waste issue, since every data point, every study and observation demonstrate that there is a significant food waste problem both in economically developed and underperforming countries. It is a major concern, as hundreds of millions around the world suffer from malnutrition, since their caloric intake falls below minimum energy requirements.[7] That is also the reason, why we need to understand the limitations of currently available data.
III. Data Analysis
UNEP worked together with a non-profit organization based in the United Kingdom the Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) to produce its first Food Waste Index in 2021, which is considered the “most comprehensive report into global food waste in homes.”[8] The report was published in 2021, but the numbers represent the situation in 2019. According to the report, 17% of all food that reaches retail ends up in the dumpster. Of that number, households are accountable for 61% of food waste, food service industry (restaurants) for 26% and retail for 13%.[9]
These are staggering numbers and to put them in perspective, they mean that roughly 931 million tonnes of food is wasted every year, which is more than the total consumption in a country as big as India. If we combine Food Waste Index with Loss Index, it would mean that more than a third of all food is either lost or wasted somewhere along the chain, which also accounts for nearly 10% of global carbon emissions. However, what if we scratch the surface and look behind the report into the raw data[10] that shaped this report. How reliable are the food waste numbers?
Authors of the report acknowledge that it is very challenging to collect data on food waste and admit that they have high-quality data from only 14 countries,[11] while they have medium confidence in reports from 42 countries. The dataset of the report lists 233 geographic units (mainly UN Member states), and has assigned no estimate, very low confidence or low confidence for data estimates for 183 of them, or 79%.[12] The below pie chart presents a visual breakdown of the data source confidence levels:[13]
Evidently, there is not much confidence in the credibility of the reported figures. The authors of the report also elaborate that overall, they were able to collect 152 data points from 54 countries and then extrapolated that data to calculate the estimates for other geographic areas where data was not available. However, even the credibility of those available data points can be questioned. For example, Poland is assigned a medium confidence level, even though the data source for Poland is a small study by local civil society actors. “The Pilot Study of Characteristics of Household Waste Generated in Suburban Parts of Rural Areas” (Steinhoff-Wrześniewska, Aleksandra), mentions that:
21 households, representing 83 people, were audited. None of them were involved in agricultural production. They were provided with three bags for sorting (bio-waste, hygenic waste, all other waste) and had waste collected in each of the four seasons. It is unclear for how long during each season the measurement took place. As a result of small sample size and unknown length, we cannot have high confidence in the estimate.
Population of Poland is 38 million and only 15 million of it lives in rural areas, while 61% reside in urban centers. A sample of only 21 households from suburban parts of rural Poland observed over undefined periods of time is not a strong representative of food management habits across the whole country.
The question is whether these numbers can serve as a reliable metrics to measure the progress or calibrate policy actions. SDG Target 12.3 aims to halve the global per capita food waste by 2030. According to UNEP’s 2021 Index average food waste per household equals 79 kg a year in high-income countries equals, 76 kg in upper middle-income countries, 91 kg in lower middle-income countries, while the data for low-income countries is insufficient. For example, the 2021 Food Waste Index Report mentions that “The next questionnaire will be sent to Member States in September 2022, and results will be reported to the SDG Global Database by February 2023.” What if the next report shows that annual food waste per household in upper middle-income countries is 86 kg. It would lead to the conclusion that the food waste in this category of countries is increasing, while in fact, the number could have been decreasing. American biochemist Erwin Chargaff once said: “I thought it was the task of the natural sciences to discover the facts of nature, not to create them.” Relying on inaccurate data for measuring progress could set in motion mismatched policy interventions and do more harm than good.
IV. Theoretical Framework
There are no easy shortcuts to producing global data, such as Food Waste Index. It requires the formation of a specific global knowledge infrastructure focused around food waste. It entails standardizing measurements and processes, disciplining staff and synchronizing reporting timelines. Achieving this subject specific institutional interoperability on a global scale, requires significant amounts of money and resources. So, I explain the current shortcomings of the Food Waste Index, by looking at the global knowledge infrastructure behind it and reference mainly these two scholarly works for theoretical backup: A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming, by Paul Edwards, and Standards and Their Stories: How Quantifying, Classifying, and Formalizing Practices Shape Everyday Life, by Martha Lampland and Susan Leigh Star.
Food Waste Index is not a legitimate scientific fact, because there is no well-founded knowledge infrastructure behind it. In his book “A Vast Machine”, Paul Edwards writes that “an established fact is one supported by an infrastructure,”[14] and elaborates that “knowledge infrastructures comprise robust networks of people, artifacts, and institutions that generate, share, and maintain specific knowledge about the human and natural worlds.”[15] If we get rid of the infrastructure, we are left with claims and facts that can neither be backed up nor verified.
In modern world, infrastructures are all around us and we use them on a daily basis, without paying much attention, unless there is a problem with them and/or we have to change them.[16] For example, behind the tap water we use, there is a complex infrastructure of plumbing and water regulation. In a similar fashion, global data requires an elaborate knowledge infrastructure that consists of national communities of scientists, government bureaucrats, and civil society activists, who understand each other, can inform and keep each other accountable. These communities need physical facilities, such as offices and laboratories, as well as legal space to conduct their work with respect to intellectual property.[17] They require mediums of communication such as conferences, journals, web portals etc., to exchange knowledge and keep up to date.
However, most importantly, for these national information eco-systems to reach beyond their borders and co-produce global data, they need standardized methods and measures. The amount of reported food waste can change depending on how countries define food waste, when they measure it and what factors they take into account. For example, according to the UNEP, “food waste is defined as edible parts and associated inedible parts going directly to the following destinations: landfill, controlled combustion, litter discards/refuse, compost/aerobic digestion, land application, co/anaerobic digestion, sewer, but does not include food waste used for biomaterial/processing, animal feed or not harvested.[18] In some countries associated inedible parts of the food used for compost, might not be considered food waste. A more accurate report, should also take into account seasonal fluctuations of food waste.
V. UNEP’s Food Waste Index
Bottom line up front, there is no global knowledge infrastructure around food waste and UNEP did not have the resources to build it up in the given time frame. UNEP has been working on food waste reduction since 2013, when it launched the global campaign Think Eat Save, but it became a priority task for UNEP only in 2019, following the UN Environment Assembly Resolution 4/2, which mandated UNEP to accelerate global action on food waste reduction.[19]
Established in 1972 and headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya UNEP has around 860 staff members worldwide.[20] The mission statement of the UNEP, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, “is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.”[21] By default the top priority for UNEP has been to lead the international efforts against climate change.
In 2013, UNEP in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) launched the Save Food Initiative and its subcomponent program “Think Eat Save: Reduce Your Footprint.” Primary goal of the FAO established in 1945 is to “achieve food security that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives.”[22] In 2011, FAO had released its estimates that nearly 1/3 of the world’s food was lost or wasted every year, which lead to their joint Save Food Initiative with UNEP two years later.
So, until recently food waste data was tangled with research into food loss and fell under the prerogative of FAO. The inherent structure of the UN system and the scheme for resource distribution, incentivizes UN agencies to compete for more responsibilities and programmatic oversight. In a 2019 survey by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, 80% of UNEP staff “noted that there was critical competition for donor sources with other UN entities.”[23] This institutional contest between FAO and UNEP could potentially explain why between 2015 and 2019, no organization was assigned as a custodian for Food Waste Index.
The first-time that food waste showed up in UNEP’s program of work and budget was in biennial 2018-2019, approved by the UN Environmental Assembly of the UNEP (UNEA) in May 2016.[24] It includes planned work outputs such as “Within sustainable food and agriculture policy frameworks, urban planning and/or existing sustainable consumption strategies, technical and policy guidance provided to public and private actors to measure, prevent and reduce food waste and increase the uptake of sustainable diet strategies and activities,” as well as “Outreach and communication campaigns to raise awareness of citizens (particularly young people) on the benefits of shifting to more sustainable consumption and production practices.” Their previous work plan for 2016-2017, proposed in 2014, had no mention of food waste.[25]
In May 2016, UNEA also adopted a resolution on “Prevention, reduction and reuse of food waste,” which requests the UNEP Executive Director “in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization to “continue to raise awareness of the environmental dimensions of the problem of food waste, and of potential solutions and good practices for preventing and reducing food waste and promoting food reuse and environmentally sound management of food waste.”[26] However, UNEP became the custodian of the Food Waste Index only in 2019, and solidified itself as the lead agency on tackling food waste pursuant to the UNEA Resolution 4/2.[27]
In 2019, UNEP received a new Executive Director Inger Anderson, a competent professional who is well versed both in sustainable development and food security issues. She has more than 30 years of experience in international development organizations, which include her roles as Vice President of the World Bank for Sustainable Development and Head of the CGIAR Fund Council.[28] CIAGR is the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, which brings together international organizations engaged in research about food security. Her predecessor came from a diplomatic background and was asked to resign as a result of an internal audit. Media reports, citing the leaks from the internal audit documents, mentioned that the head of UNEP spent “$500,000 on air travel and hotels in just 22 months, and was away 80% of the time.”[29] So, positive changes happened in the organization under the new leadership and Food Waste Index became one of the top priorities for UNEP.
When UNEP was first assigned as a custodian in 2019, Food Waste Index was still classified as a Tier 3 indicator by the UN’s Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs). The UN breaks down all SDG indicators into 3 Tiers:
“Tier 1: Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, and data are regularly produced by countries for at least 50 per cent of countries and of the population in every region where the indicator is relevant.
Tier 2: Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, but data are not regularly produced by countries.
Tier 3: No internationally established methodology or standards are yet available for the indicator, but methodology/standards are being (or will be) developed or tested.”
Tier classifications change over time as the quality of data for indicators improves. For example, as of February 2022, IAEG-SDG lists 136 Tier I indicators, 91 Tier II indicators and 4 indicators that have multiple tiers (different components of the indicator are classified into different tiers),[30] while in September 2016, there were 81 Tier I indicators, 57 Tier II indicators and 88 Tier III indicators.[31] According to the IAEG reports Food Waste Index was upgraded from Tier III to Tier to II within 2 years.
When we look at the work plan of the UN Environment Program for 2020-2021, it has 7 subprograms, and collecting data for Food Waste Index falls under the Subprogram 6, which is about Resource Efficiency. In 2020-2021, UNEP allocated $95.6 million to the Subprogram 6, which means roughly $48 million per annum. It had 114 staff members working towards the 20 planned work outputs under the Resource Efficiency subprogram.
Mainly these work outputs were geared towards developing the information infrastructure for delivering the SDG indicators. For example, “Resource use assessments and related policy options are developed and provided to countries to support planning and policy-making, including support for the application and monitoring of relevant SDG indicators.” Or, “Database services providing enhanced availability and accessibility of life cycle assessment data are provided through an interoperable global network, methods for environmental and social indicators and the ways to apply them in decision-making.”[32] Most of these programmatic activities are about capacity development, technical assistance, training, policy support, etc.
As a result of UNEP’s active engagement, the number of countries that have a common global measurement approach for consistent reporting under SDG 12.3 increases every year. On average UNEP adds around 10 countries a year to their list of countries compatible for food waste reporting. This shows that UNEP is on the right track on building the knowledge infrastructure for a more reliable global Food Waste Index.
UNEP’s methodology for data collection is to send out Questionnaire on Environment Statistics (Waste Section) to National Statistical Offices and Ministries of Environment. If the respective authorities from these countries do not respond, then UNEP refers to alternative sources for information. However, we should be clear eyed that national executive agencies that collaborate with UNEP are not politically neutral entities and their responses to questionnaires can be subject to political interests of their respective governments.[33] So, these agencies might have the capacity to produce reliable numbers, but not the intention. For this reason, it would benefit the credibility of the food waste index, if UNEP increases its engagement with civil society organizations that can serve as alternative sources of reporting on food waste.
VI. Conclusion
The 2021 Report on Food Waste Index, does not just provide us with numbers about food waste, but it also informs us about the state of the knowledge infrastructure around food waste. The formation of a knowledge infrastructure is a lengthy and complicated process. Institutional resources of the UN system, its global reach, and modern technologies have enabled UNEP to make tremendous progress towards building this infrastructure, within a very short period of time. However, it is still unclear, when UNEP will be able to produce reliable global data on food waste. UNEP can draw many valuable lessons from their 2021 report on food waste, but it should not be used as a benchmark for progress, since it could lead to many misplaced conclusions down the road.
Looking into the future the importance of sustainable consumption will only increase. Over the course of the past century, humanity experienced unprecedent growth in global wealth and food production. Surging food production rates create enormous pressure on the environment, even though hundreds of millions are still not getting their fair share. One of the big reasons for this failure is the food waste problem. Unfortunately, until recently food waste issue has been largely neglected and calculating exactly how much food is wasted has remained an elusive target. If UNEP stays consistent with its action plan, global Food Waste Index will become increasingly more reliable, as more and more countries will be able to plug into the global knowledge infrastructure on food waste. However, there is a lot of work ahead. In the meantime, I would like to reiterate the call of the UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson’s opening message in the 2021Food Waste Index Report, “let us all shop carefully, cook creatively and make wasting food anywhere socially unacceptable.”
[1] “U.N. Report Says 17% of Food Wasted at Consumer Level.” U.S., Reuters, 4 Mar. 2021,
[2] Merchant, Natalie. “Global Food Waste Twice the Size of Previous Estimates.” World Economic Forum, 26 Mar. 2021.
[3] Sustainable Development. (2022). UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://sdgs.un.org/
[4] “Measuring Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.” Our World in Data, SDG Tracker, sdg-tracker.org. Accessed 5 Mar. 2022.
[5] Sustainable consumption and production policies. (2022). UNEP – UN Environment Programme.
[6] UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021. (2021). UNEP – UN Environment Programme. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021
[7] Roser, M. (2019, October 8). Hunger and Undernourishment. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
[8] “New UNEP Report Developed in Collaboration with WRAP Reveals True Scale of Global Food Waste.” The Waste and Resources Action Programme, 2021, wrap.org.uk/FoodWasteIndex.
[9] UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021. (2021). UNEP – UN Environment Programme.
[10] SDG Indicators Database. (2021). UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/UNSDG/IndDatabasePage
[11] According to the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021, countries with high-quality data on food waste are Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
[12] “Food Waste Index Level 1 Annex.” UNEP- UN Environment Program, 2021, wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/35355/FWD.xlsx.
[13] Ibid
[14] Edwards, P. N. (2013). A Vast Machine, p. 22
[15] Edwards, P. N. (2013). A Vast Machine, p. 17
[16] Lampland, Martha, and Susan Leigh Star. Standards and Their Stories.
[17] Ibid
[18] UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021. (2021), p. 14
[19] “Promoting Sustainable Practices and Innovative Solutions for Curbing Food Loss and Waste.” United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEP – UN Environment Programme, Mar. 2019, wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/28499/English.pdf.
[20] UNEP | International Organizations. (2005). IGPN – International Green Purchasing Network. http://www.igpn.org/global/interorg/unep.html
[21] “About UN Environment Programme.” UNEP – UN Environment Programme, http://www.unep.org/about-un-environment. Accessed 5 Mar. 2022.
[22] “About FAO.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, http://www.fao.org/about/en. Accessed 5 Mar. 2022.
[23] Ivanova, Maria (Feb 23, 2021). The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty, p. 62
[24] “Programme of Work and Budget for the Biennium 2018‒2019.” United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEP – UN Environment Program, May 2016
[25] “Proposed Biennial Programme of Work and Budget for 2016–2017.” United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEP – UN Environment Programme, June 2014
[26] “Prevention, Reduction and Reuse of Food Waste.” United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEP – UN Environment Program, May 2016.
[27] “Promoting Sustainable Practices and Innovative Solutions for Curbing Food Loss and Waste.” United Nations Environment Assembly, UNEP – UN Environment Programme, Mar. 2019.
[28] Inger Andersen. (2019). UNEP – UN Environment Program
[29] Carrington, D. (2018, November 20). UN environment chief resigns after frequent flying revelations. The Guardian.
[30] “Tier Classification for Global SDG Indicators.” UN Statistics Division, Feb. 2019,
[31] “Tier Classification for Global SDG Indicators.” UN Statistics Division, Sept. 2016,
[32] “Proposed Programme of Work and Budget for the Biennium 2020‒ 20211.” UN Environment Assembly, p. 98
[33] In her book “Shades of Citizenship,” Melissa Nobles presents a very illuminating discussion about the impact of the political interests of the data collecting agencies on the data they produce