The leading retailer Tesco has partnered with global environmental action NGO WRAP to inspire fresh action to tackle global food waste, which currently contributes between 8-10% of climate warming greenhouse gas emissions, and totals more than one billion tonnes every year.
The World Economic Forum estimates that food loss and waste also costs the global economy $936 billion a year, when more than 783 million people go hungry every day, and a third of humanity faces food insecurity.
The collaboration will deliver a programme of high-impact initiatives at key moments in the environmental calendar to drive forward action across the whole supply chain – from farm to fork – and motivate government action ahead of COP30.
Tony McElroy, Tesco’s Head of Circularity Campaigns, comments: "We're incredibly proud of all the steps we’ve taken so far, from avoiding waste by redistributing over 300 million meals to charities and communities, to helping customers save money and cut waste at home. We remain focussed on driving forward action across our entire supply chain and in collaboration with our key partners as we accelerate progress to halve our food waste."
Known for its leadership in food waste prevention, Tesco was one of the first retailers to ask suppliers to adopt the Target-Measure-Act approach to food waste it had adopted in its operations and publicly report its own and supply chain food waste. The company was a founding member of the UK Food and Drink Pact, managed by WRAP – the climate action NGO leading work on global food system transformation across food waste prevention, water security and GHG emissions for more than twenty years.
The two have a long association of working together, but this is the first partnership setting out ambitious new global focus. Catherine David, CEO WRAP explains, “Food waste shouldn’t happen. It’s one of the largest, most urgent and actionable issues to address and doesn’t need to wait for new technology or AI – it needs focus, collaboration, shared targets and ambition. Looking at NDCs across countries attending COP in recent years, this has all been in dangerously short supply.
“The need to reset our global food system is imperative as our population grows and the climate changes. One third of what we produce goes to waste every year while millions go hungry. We need a fair and sustainable system to protect these fragile networks from future disruptions and to make the most of the food we have, for all.
“Food security will become a priority for governments as the real impacts of climate change bite harder in coming years, and tackling waste is a key step they must take. WRAP and Tesco are taking a stand to call out inaction, and demand more from those who fail to act.”
The Tesco WRAP partnership will host a collaborative panel organised at the Climate Innovation Forum for Wednesday 25 June at London Climate Action Week. This brings together senior representatives from governments, businesses, cities, finance, the UN and the climate community at the key midpoint between COP meetings to show how business and industry can take action with meaningful consequences.
The panel will consist of Catherine David - WRAP’s CEO, Tony McElroy, Tesco’s Head of Circularity Campaigns, Kris Gibbon-Walsh, FareShare’s CEO, and Mark Willcox, Branston’s Agronomy Director. Rosemary Brotchie, Senior Manager, Health and Sustainability at The Consumer Goods Forum will chair.
The session sets out the aims to address every link in the food supply chain from farm to fork – from food waste in the home (which makes up 60% of the UK’s 10.7 million tonne total each year), to improving efficiencies – reduce waste - and increase redistribution in retail and manufacture, and with farms and growers to reduce the amount of surplus and food loss.
New WRAP targets
WRAP also warns that governments are falling far short of the simplest climate action of all. Last year the NGO monitored Nationally Determined Contributions ahead of COP29 and found that only 12 of the 195 countries attending had committed to reducing food loss and waste. WRAP will report on how many countries made progress at COP30.
To redouble global action, WRAP is also today announcing a series of ambitious new targets it has created to drive action within other companies and across governments. These address the twin pressures of producing food in ways we can sustain long term and reducing the impact that food production has in driving up GHG emissions, degrading water systems and fuelling food waste globally.
WRAP has set out:
- A collective business target – to drive 50 international retailers and manufacturers to adopt food loss and waste targets in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 (SDG12.3).
- A collective action drive – to inspire 50 new businesses to join WRAP’s food agreements across Brazil, the UK, Indonesia, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and the EU in line with SDG 12.3.
- Influence policy – to create a united business voice calling for the inclusion of food loss and waste in national policies and NDCs. To call on G20 member states, the Community of Latin American & Caribbean States, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to prioritise food loss and waste reduction; to set targets and provide a supportive policy environment for businesses to act.