Handlungsempfehlungen zur Reduktion von Lebensmittelabfällen und ihre Klimarelevanz anhand von theoretischen Umsetzungsbeispielen im europäischen Raum

Abstract

In the European Union (EU) 88 Mio. tons of food waste is produced each year; most of it in private households (Stenmarck et al. 2016). The prevention of food waste has first priority. Food losses, which are not or only limited avoidable like residues from manufacturing industry, press cake, peelings, bones, should be used more efficiently and treated in the most environmentally beneficial way. A successful implementation of prevention or reduction measures requires specific knowledge on food waste. The EU Horizon 2020 Project REFRESH adopts a systemic approach and use cutting edge science to enable action by businesses, consumers and public authorities to reduce food waste and to maximize the value from unavoidable food waste. Those actions include an analysis of the consumer behaviour, the establishing of stakeholder platforms on national level and of virtual platforms supporting cooperation on European level as well as recommendations for the food waste policy. This article shows the EU food waste data set and the food use hierarchy. Outcomes of the surveys and tasks of REFRESH around the fields of actions to reduce food waste are reported. Additionally, environmental impacts of different reduction scenarios—food waste prevention, further use or recycling of unavoidable food waste, animal feeding, dietary change regarding meat and reduced meat waste—are shown on the basis of greenhouse gas savings.