Let's talk about #foodwaste, and the incredible carbon-cutting benefits of addressing and preventing it. If we halved UK food waste & planted trees on the land saved, we'd save more emissions than produced by the whole of the UK agriculture sector. feedbackglobal.org/bad-energy-the…
Halving food waste + reforestation on grassland spared could mean saving and offsetting the equivalent of 11% of the UK’s total emissions. The cropland spared would be enough to grow enough potatoes and peas to feed 28% of the UK population!
If we don't prevent food waste we have to do something with it - and currently we send millions of tonnes of food, and other resources like crops, to Anaerobic Digestion plants which turn it into biogas. The AD industry has big plans to grow by 100 new plants every year.
Using biogas plants as a way to recover energy from unavoidable food waste has a role in a circular and sustainable food system. But it's not the whole picture and there's a risk that subsidies and industry investment are distorting climate priorities. feedbackglobal.org/bad-energy-the…
From an energy perspective, there are far more environmentally-friendly ways to make energy, such as wind and solar. As we decarbonise our energy via renewables, making biogas from wasted food and purpose-grown crops makes less and less sense. 
In our latest report we modelled a scenario where food waste is halved, land reforested or used for food production w/ AD playing a small role. This scenario achieved TWICE the emissions mitigation compared to optimising AD in line with industry ambitions feedbackglobal.org/wp-content/upl…
So what needs to happen? Some AD plants receive millions in subsidies, while little gov't money is directed towards properly preventing food waste. Meanwhile, big food businesses have had years to start measuring and publicly reporting on their waste - it's time for more ambition
We're calling on the gov't to set ambitious, binding food waste targets as part of our climate goals, commit to regulation to require large food businesses to publicly report on their waste, and reform subsidies to disincentivise excessive reliance on AD. feedbackglobal.org/wp-content/upl…
