WRAP research: New estimates for household food and drink waste in the UK, Nov 2011

New research shows that annual UK household food waste has fallen by 13% / 1.1 million tonnes (mt) over a three year period from 8.3mt to an estimated 7.2mt. Avoidable household food waste (i.e. food that could have been eaten) has reduced by 950,000 tonnes, or 18%, from 5.3 to 4.4 million tonnes annually.
 
The report concludes:  There is strong evidence from both waste and purchasing data that there has been a substantial reduction in the amount of food waste generated by households in the UK, which will have delivered huge benefits to the environment, in terms of reductions in CO2 e emissions (3.6 million tonnes less per year), water usage (1 billion litres less per year)and the amount of material sent to landfill (around 1 million tonnes). Although food price inflation means that the value of the lower level of avoidable food waste is similar to that in 2007, without this reduction, consumers would be spending around £2.5 billion a year more on food and drink that ends up as waste.
 
Determining the extent to which different factors have triggered, and then enabled, this reduction in household food waste is difficult. The tough economic times and rising food prices have undoubtedly contributed to the desire to maximise the value out of the food that is bought, and reduce food waste, and changes to the way waste is collected from households may also have helped raise awareness of the amount of food being thrown away. Work is in progress by WRAP to develop new approaches to help understand how all of these factors interact to motivate and bring about changes in food waste levels.
 
Although the findings presented in this report are extremely positive, it is important to recognise that household food waste remains the single largest contributor to overall UK food waste (around 50% of the total). Continued effort is required to bring about further significant reductions in the £12 billion worth of avoidable food waste associated with around 17 million tonnes of CO2 e and a water footprint of 4.5 billion m3.
 
Further work is required to understand the detail behind these changes in household food waste, in particular around the types of food being thrown away, by different types of household. In addition, future research to track changes in household food waste will rely on there being a significant number of compositional studies carried out across the UK.

Fruit and vegetable consumption falls in the UK

Poorer families in Britain have cut the amount of fruit and vegetables they buy by almost a third to consume little over half the recommended five portions per day. Households in the lowest income bracket consistently bought smaller and smaller quantities of fruit and vegetables between 2006 and 2010, the most recent year for figures released by DEFRA.

Fruit purchases among families on the lowest incomes fell 30 per cent at just 2.7 portions per person per day. The amount spent on food in the bracket peaked at 16.8 per cent in 2008, before falling back to 16.1 per cent in 2009 and 15.8 per cent in 2010.

The DEFRA survey suggests this was possibly due to households finding ways to trade down to cheaper products.

The survey also looked at home-grown food, and found that between three and four per cent of fresh fruit and veg entering the household in 2010 came from free sources, mainly gardens and allotments.

NB: The reduction in consumption of perishable foods, such as fruit and vegetables may well be one reason why less food is waste – and both link to food price rises.

WRAP research: Investigation into the possible impact of promotions on food waste, December 2011

A review and a consumer survey which look at promotions used by the UK grocery sector and what effect they might have on food waste. The tentative results from the in-home part of this research suggest that food bought on promotion is not more likely to be wasted, at least for the products investigated.

GHG impacts of different dietary choices

This paper, by FCRN mailing list member Mike Berners-Lee and others, examines the GHG implications of different dietary choices.

Berners-Lee M, Hoolohan C, Cammack H and Hewitt C N (in press) The relative greenhouse gas impacts of realistic dietary choices, Energy Policy

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions embodied in 61 different categories of food are used, with information on the diet of different groups of the population (omnivorous, vegetarian and vegan), to calculate the embodied GHG emissions in different dietary scenarios. We calculate that the embodied GHG content of the current UK food supply is 7.4 kg CO2e person−1 day−1, or 2.7 t CO₂e person−1 y−1. This gives total food-related GHG emissions of 167 Mt CO₂e (1 Mt=106 metric tonnes; CO₂e being the mass of CO₂ that would have the same global warming potential, when measured over 100 years, as a given mixture of greenhouse gases) for the entire UK population in 2009. This is 27% of total direct GHG emissions in the UK, or 19% of total GHG emissions from the UK, including those embodied in goods produced abroad. We calculate that potential GHG savings of 22% and 26% can be made by changing from the current UK-average diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet, respectively. Taking the average GHG saving from six vegetarian or vegan dietary scenarios compared with the current UK-average diet gives a potential national GHG saving of 40 Mt CO₂e y−1. This is equivalent to a 50% reduction in current exhaust pipe emissions from the entire UK passenger car fleet. Hence realistic choices about diet can make substantial differences to embodied GHG emissions.
 
You can download the paper (subscription needed) here.

Job available: Research Officer - Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre (Ref. 8544)

Salary: Up to £29,249 per annum (subject to experience and qualifications)
Closing date: 31 January 2012
 
A researcher is being sought to undertake a range of research-related activities within the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre at the University of Surrey(http://www.surrey.ac.uk/psychology/research/fcbh/. The post holder will be given responsibility for tasks within research projects and supporting the management of the Research Centre and will be responsible to the director of the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre and/or other members of the Research Centre.  The post holder will support project leaders within the Research Centre with the management and running of research within the Research Centre. For informal discussions about the post, please contact Dr Monique Raats: 01483 689431/07740 476972.

Job available: Senior consultant / consultant: food chain and agricultural economics

GHK, an independent consultancy specialising in public policy research, evaluation and analysis, is recruiting for a senior consultant or a consultant with prior relevant work experience.  The successful applicant will join a UK-based team that provides policy-relevant research, analysis, evaluation and strategy services to the European Commission, the UK government and other (mostly public sector) clients on food chain issues.
 
The successful applicant will:  be qualified to at least MSc level, with one or more degrees that have a strong economic component (and preferably agricultural economics); be competent in the application of economic and econometric analysis, and comfortable with a range of quantitative methods and management of large or complex datasets; be able to demonstrate professional experience in the research, design, appraisal or evaluation of public policy relating to agriculture and/or the wider food chain in the EU or UK. Familiarity with impact assessment methodologies would be an advantage; have excellent written English and competence in another EU language. For further details please see here.

Application deadline February 10, 2012.

Job available: CCAFS Science Officer

The CGIAR Research Program, “Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security” (CCAFS, http://ccafs.cgiar.org) is a major collaborative endeavor between the international agricultural (CGIAR) and global environmental change (ESSP) research communities, and their respective partners. CCAFS seeks to overcome the threats posed by a changing climate to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management in the developing world.
 
The CCAFS Science Officer will help coordinate and conduct research contributing to CCAFS’ Pro-Poor Mitigation Theme research. The position is based at ICRAF headquarters in Nairobi.
 
For more information see here. 

The deadline for applications is 1 March 2012.

Video seminar: How do current climate models for agricultural impacts perform in Africa and South Asia?

Recent trends, current projections, crop-climate suitability, and prospects for improved climate model information
 
Date: 21 February 2012
Time: 14:30 - 15:30 Central European Time.
Click to be notified when the live video stream begins

Soon-to-be-released studies, coordinated by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), assess the performance of climate models in representing the current and future climate of East Africa, West Africa and South Asia, with a particular emphasis on the models’ ability to assess impacts of climate change on the major crops currently grown in each region.

Profesor Richard Washington (University of Oxford) and Professor Mark New (University of Cape Town) will discuss recent trends, current projections, crop-climate suitability, and prospects for improved climate model information over the next 10 years, and answer questions from viewers.

Relationship between human development and carbon emissions embodied in trade

Steinberger, J. K., J. T. Roberts, G. P. Peters and G. Baiocchi (2012). "Pathways of human development and carbon emissions embodied in trade." Nature Climate Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1371.
 
Details as follows:

It has long been assumed that human development depends on economic growth, that national economic expansion in turn requires greater energy use and, therefore, increased greenhouse-gas emissions. These interdependences are the topic of current research. Scarcely explored, however, is the impact of international trade: although some nations develop socio-economically and import high-embodied-carbon products, it is likely that carbon-exporting countries gain significantly fewer benefits. Here, we use new consumption-based measures of national carbon emissions1 to explore how the relationship between human development and carbon changes when we adjust national emission rates for trade. Without such adjustment of emissions, some nations seem to be getting far better development ‘bang’ for the carbon ‘buck’ than others, who are showing scant gains for disproportionate shares of global emissions. Adjusting for the transfer of emissions through trade explains many of these outliers, but shows that further socio-economic benefits are accruing to carbon-importing rather than carbon-exporting countries. We also find that high life expectancies are compatible with low carbon emissions but high incomes are not. Finally, we see that, despite strong international trends, there is no deterministic industrial development trajectory: there is great diversity in pathways, and national histories do not necessarily follow the global trends.

The article can be downloaded from Nature Climate Change (subscription needed).
 
The authors point out that this work is based on two previous articles:
 
Steinberger, J. K. and J. T. Roberts (2010). "From constraint to sufficiency: the decoupling of energy and carbon from human needs, 1975-2005." Ecological Economics 70(2): 425-433.
 
Peters, G. P., J. C. Minx, C. L. Weber and O. Edenhofer (2011). "Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(21): 8903-8908.

Tesco drops carbon label

Tesco has dropped its plan to label all its products with their carbon footprint.  For coverage see The Guardian - here, or The Grocer - here, or Business Green - here.

IRC webinar: business briefing, Food and Farming – the Role of Refrigeration.

The International Refrigeration Committee held a business briefing on the future of food and farming – the role of refrigeration.  The presentations are available to download here -  you need to register first.

Report: Veg or Non-Veg? India at the Crossroads

This report, published by Brighter Green, documents the effects of the expansion and intensification of the livestock sector for India's food security, resource utilization, and issues of equity and sustainability. It explores whether India, with a long vegetarian tradition, a fast-urbanizing and growing population, an expanding middle class, as well as millions of people experiencing food insecurity, can—or should—use its natural capital to produce (and export) more animal products in an increasingly industrial landscape.
 
You can download the full report a briefing paper and an accompanying video here.  Brighter Green has also produced reports on changing livestock structures in Brazil, China and Ethiopia, which you can access from the same page.

British Retail Consortium progress report: A Better Retailing Climate: Towards Sustainable Retail

The British Retail Consortium  has published its annual environmental progress report.  This report sets out the retail sector’s progress in meeting targets focusing on its direct impacts (buildings, refrigeration, transport, in-store waste and water use); its customers’ impacts (food waste, packaging waste, green products and services, plastic bags); its supply chain (soy and palm oil, working with suppliers; waste in the supply chain; developing sustainable products) and supporting government to meet its objectives. Collectively, BRC members have met or exceeded most of the targets set except for packaging in the supply chain.
 
An assessment by Forum for the Future (FFF) concludes:
 
Throughout this report is evidence of a sector making good progress on tackling its direct environmental impacts. … However, there is no room for complacency, as some of the targets are not that stretching …The report also describes some progress in tackling consumer impacts, although the exact degree of progress is hard to judge as there are only qualitative, non-specific targets for this area. Given that the environmental footprint associated with the use phase of goods is magnitudes greater than that associated with manufacture and transport, measuring and then reducing these impacts is a critical challenge for the sector.
 
FFF recommends:

• UK retailers should build on the progress made in addressing direct environmental impacts by developing quantitative and ambitious targets for all aspects of sustainability, including biodiversity, supply chain and consumer use.
• Retailers need to move from supporting their customers to be sustainable, to leading them and making sustainable living much easier than it is today.
• The UK retail sector needs to think now about alternative, sustainable business models, and start to experiment with these new models in earnest. The rapid growth of on-line retail and the explosion of peer-to-peer business models is an indication of how quickly business practice can change.

The Forum also says “there needs to be a reframing of the boundary between pre-competitive and competitive issues in order to deliver collaboration at the scale required. Ultimately, the BRC and UK retail should aspire to deliver a new and valuable export from the UK economy – a sustainable business model for retail.”

2nd Annual LCIRAH Agri-Health Workshop: The Role of Agricultural and Food Systems Research in Combating Chronic Disease for Development

London: July 2-3, 2012
 
Nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent the leading causes of death and disability worldwide with the greatest prevalence in low and middle-income countries where nearly 80% of NCD deaths occur.  The burden of death and disease from NCDs is greater than that for communicable or infectious diseases in every region except Africa, where NCD rates are rapidly rising. The increasing prevalence of NCDs in even the poorest regions of the world has potentially enormous consequences for development. However, the linkages between NCDs and poverty and constraints to development are not universally well-recognised, and it is important that a clearer case be made to mobilize more widespread attention from the development community.
 
There is increasing recognition of the need for a preventative approach based on food-based strategies, ie., improving diets to reduce the burden of NCDs. However, almost all the available experience in this regard comes from the developed world. These lessons, typically based on food sector regulation and engagement with consumers, do not transfer easily to the developing world. The research world is starting to think about upstream solutions, such as structuring agricultural policy to incentivise the production of healthier crop mixes, or governing value chains to produce better nutritional outcomes.
 
This workshop in London will bring together health, food systems, development, policy and agriculture researchers to explore the latest thinking on these issues.
 
Further details, including indication of key speakers and topics will be made available through further announcements on a monthly basis at www.lcirah.ac.uk, and will be circulated via email. Those interested in attending are requested to contact Joanna Clegg