In a stark revelation, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that over 1 billion meals are discarded daily while 783 million individuals face hunger globally, spotlighting the pressing issue of food waste amidst rising food insecurity. The UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024, crafted with WRAP, sheds light on the scale of food waste across households, retail, and food services, urging for improved data collection and reduction strategies. Highlighting that food waste contributes significantly to climate change, nature loss, and economic strains, UNEP calls for global action to address this challenge. The report emphasizes the need for countries, especially within the G20, to enhance their data measurement frameworks to track and achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of halving food waste by 2030. The findings underscore food waste as a universal issue, not confined to affluent nations, and point towards the environmental, societal, and economic imperatives of reducing food waste through coordinated actions, including public-private partnerships and systemic solutions to drive significant reductions.
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