International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste 2023

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) designated 29 September as the International Day of  Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW), recognising that the observance of such a day will contribute  significantly to raising awareness of the importance of the problem and its possible solutions at all levels and to promote global efforts and collective action towards meeting SDG target 12.3 – halving per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains.

Reducing food loss and waste will help transform our food system by:

• reducing its environmental and climate impact
• increasing food availability, contributing to food security
• building resilience

The proposed EU targets will help accelerate this transformation.

Food waste has a huge impact on the environment, accounting for about 16% of Greenhouse Gas emissions from the EU food system. In the EU, if food waste were a Member State, it would be the 5th largest emitter of Greenhouse Gas emissions.