When many people think “environmental,” it’s usually the EPA that comes to mind. Or they might think “pollution” from big industry. More recently, the term “sustainability” has become popular, and even marketable, for many companies that may have a formal triple bottom line plan in place. But consumers also play a role in creating a more sustainable environment. In fact, as it turns out, it may be a fairly significant role. According to a United Nations’ report last year, that less than perfect piece of fruit we tend to throw out has a pretty big impact on the environment – but how big of an impact? Before I answer that, let’s take a step back.
Agriculture’s Environmental Impact
In recent years, the world’s producers of food have come under increased pressure to be more sustainable and environmentally sound in their practices – for good reasons. Agricultural producers in the United States have made very significant progress in producing more with less. For example, Dr. Jude Capper has done substantial research in comparing modern dairy farming with 1940’s era dairies. According to Dr. Capper, “analysis clearly demonstrates… considerable improvements in productive efficiency… by advances in genetics, nutrition and management (which has) considerably reduced the carbon footprint and mitigated the environmental impact… thereby improving agricultural sustainability.”
In his book, The Big Thirst, The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, Charles Fishman explains that Americans use less water today than we did in 1980, not just in per-capita terms, but also in absolute terms. In 1980, we used 440 billion gallons per day, and, 25 years later, we are using less than 410 billion gallons a day, even though our population increased by 70 million people.
Reducing and further limiting the impact that our food system has on the environment is important for all of us… Especially when you consider that we need to double food production by the year 2050 while minimizing the impact to the environment.
Getting back to my question… How about that food you just threw out? Does it really amount to anything of significance… environmentally speaking?
There is new information from the United Nations Environmental Programme/Food and Agricultural Organization that suggests reducing food waste is a really big deal.
UN report on food waste
According to the report released in September 2013, the amount of food wastage (food loss and food waste) globally is profound. “The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself.”
Recall all of our gains in water efficiencies – they are all but lost by the amount of food waste. According to the report, the total volume of wasted water is equivalent to three times the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River (250km3).
Further, this waste translates into 1.4 billion hectares of land being wasted, 3.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases being released, and much of the food waste ending up in landfills.
Certainly, these 1.3 billion tons are not the result of consumers throwing our scraps in the trash or pitching some unappealing fruit…but collectively, it does have an impact.
When you dig into the numbers, globally, the food wastage occurs at various points in the process. In the western world, the wastage occurs at the retail and consumer end. While in developing countries the wastage occurs during agricultural production – food loss from inefficiencies in supply chains.
The solutions to this food wastage problem are not simple and vary by regions across the world. However, they include better harvesting, storage, processing, transporting of crops, use of technology, and, as the FAO reports, “on the retail and consumer side, raising awareness of the problem…”
Modern food production practices, though under increased pressure to limit their impact to the environment even further really has made tremendous gains in limiting their footprint while increasing productivity.
… And, for that matter, companies across the spectrum (industry and non-industrial alike) are far more efficient and cleaner than they were just a half-generation ago. If the United Nations report is accurate, then we, as consumers, need to make sure we are doing our part in reducing waste and limiting the impact to the environment.