The need for a uniform definition and food waste at international and national level

Reducing food loss and waste can improve food security and nutrition, but the lack of a uniform and unambiguous definition of food waste worldwide can jeopardize such a goal which requires on the opposite to measure and estimate in a credible, practical and consistent manner the extent of loss and waste and to identify where they occur in order to implement a more efficient food system, also through recycling and reuse.

International organizations (including regional integration organizations such as the EU) and State governments refer to different definitions. In the International perspective, policy and definition of food waste have been traditionally developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) with the explicit intent to combat world hunger to which the sustainable goals have been added recently. But no common definition can still be found in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), referring to a mere “proposal under development” for a common food waste index under goal 12 within target 12.3.1b, while defining only a food loss index at target 12.3.1a.

A European definition of food waste has been targeting for decades the specific goal of environmental impact reduction, which is just one of the numerous aims identified within the International legal framework and more recently in the ‘EU green deal’. EU Member States should now refer to the methodology set out in Annex III of Commission delegated decision (EU) 2019/1597. In compliance with this act, in October 2022 EUROSTAT published the first EU-wide monitoring of food waste report on 2020 data on food waste levels, decades after the Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) established an annual reporting obligation. Nonetheless, in this first collection, several countries have used estimates or have indicated that for some data points their definitions and targets still differ a lot, some others did not confer any data.

This proved that a precise, usable and uniform definition in the EU is still a goal to be achieved and causes difficulties at the national level, when public and private stakeholders are required to implement legislation aimed at reduce food waste.

In a first phase the project aims at identifying the actual legal framework at the international, European and national (Italian) level of food waste measurement, analysing the different stages of implementation and the difficulties faced by States, public and private stakeholders in applying the recently enacted methodologies, with a special focus to Italy. Attention will be paid also to soft law instruments to which stakeholders are invited to refer, such as the “Guidance on reporting of data on food waste and food waste prevention according to Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/2000”, in order to unveil the unclear definitions and instructions provided and the specific reasons of the differences detected in the 2022 measurement, due apparently -at a first scrutiny- to “limitations in sample size, exclusion of small sub-sectors or of small companies or activities, incompleteness of sector surveys, suboptimal estimation of coefficients for the fresh mass calculation, misinterpretation of definitions by data reporters, difficulties in attributing the waste measurement in between two or more sectors (EUROSTAT 2022)”.

The second phase will be devoted to complete and disseminate a technical report on the collected evidence-based data with the aim of proposing amendments to existing legislation and/or integrations to implementing rules that are still under development in the identification of uniform and unambiguous definition of food waste. The Report will be targeted to policy makers as well as to other stakeholders, both public and private, including the NGOs involved in the implementation of such legislation, but also retailers and alternative food networks (including those selling through apps or internet platforms). The same targeted end-user will be involved at the present stage in order to give priority to their needs and try to avoid the past difficulties they encountered, adopting an innovative ‘multi-stakeholder approach’, as envisaged by the SDGs and as already experimented while elaborating the so called “legge Gadda”, which represent a best-practice model for many European States, to establish the effectiveness of which an ex-post evaluation of what is considered ‘discarded’ could be extremely relevant for the vulnerables, having no access to adequate food.

The ex-post evaluation of existing legislation and the collection of feedbacks from policy makers and other public and private stakeholders that implemented it will enable the spoke to suggest how to appropriately modify such legislation in force and when and how to introduce new and more effective rules, in order to: 
a) to reduce food waste thanks to a uniform and unambiguous definition of food waste at different levels (international, European and national) which can be measured and estimated in a credible, practical and consistent manner, by developing a definition that could be consistent with actual methodologies used to collect data or to propose new methodologies and tools suggested by UNIBO units, namely the Observatory Waste Watcher and zero waste initiatives); as well as to
b) institutionalise a new methodology represented by a multi-stakeholder approach that could be scaled up in the future, both
- by creating a permanent stakeholders committee (in strict cooperation with the Observatory Waste Watcher created and developed by UNIBO) which could be ready to future possible adjustments (driven for example by new economic, political, social changes and/or new technologies), and 
- to check the efficacy of other policies/rules related to connected issues aimed at improving sustainable and healthy diets;
c) provide academic and professional training for young researchers and relevant stakeholders on the existing legislation in order to allow a more uniform application of the european obligatory standards in ITaly (as well as in other Member States).