Build Back Better: Using Green and Digital Technologies to Reduce Food Waste at Consumer Level

How can we use green technologies to reduce food waste, and what policies are needed to get things moving?

March 21, 2022

Food waste exacerbates our triple planetary crises of climate, nature and pollution. One-third of the food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted, costing 2.6 trillion USD annually.

Green and digital technologies are increasingly being used to reduce food waste at consumer level, including in storage, packaging, pre-treatment, portion control, compost, traceability, and supply-demand matching. This offers huge business opportunities and could accelerate the transition towards an Inclusive Green Economy and Sustainable Consumption and Production, in the course of Building Back Better.

This project brings together different knowledge groups of UNEP for an integrated approach cutting across Economic and Trade PolicyFood and Food WasteConsumer InformationSustainable Lifestyles, and the International Resource Panel (IRP). This is combined with case studies of 5 cities in 5 regions, including: