

How Reducing Food Waste Could Ease Climate Change


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Workers harvest celery in Greenfield, California. The energy that goes into the production, harvest, transportation, and packaging of wasted food produces more than 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.




John Mandyck, the chief sustainability officer of United Technologies, a U.S.-based engineering and refrigerated transport firm, says that food waste can be mitigated by improving the "cold chain," which comprises refrigerated transport and storage facilities. His company hosted the first World Cold Chain Summit in London last November. This week, Mandyck is in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Summit, where he's talking up the problem of food waste. He answered questions via e-mail from Davos.

Why does the issue of food waste seem to slip below the radar?

We tend to take our food for granted in the developed world. Since food is so plentiful, we aren't aware of the tremendous amount that's wasted and the impact that has on world hunger, political stability, the environment, and climate change. Yet when it comes to looking for ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions, food wastage is a relatively easy fix—the low-hanging fruit, so to speak—and it is literally rotting on our tables. It doesn't require any new technology, just more efficient use of what we already have. (Read about the effort to rethink "use by" labels on food.)

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Beef sits on display at a supermarket in Dallas. About a third of food waste is due to consumers buying too much and discarding the excess.



What can we do better? Where should industry's and governments' focus be on reducing food wastage?


What would be the dividends?

The dividends of avoiding food waste can be historic. We produce enough food to feed everyone on our planet today and the 2.5 billion more people to come in the next 35 years. We have to waste less to feed more. Farming already uses 38 percent of our ice-free land, compared to just 2 percent for cities, and uses 70 percent of our fresh water. We can't keep growing more food, and continuing to waste as much, to feed more people. The environmental dividends are no less significant: lower climate emissions from a major source and more water efficiency to combat growing water scarcity.

And at the consumer level?

We can all take small steps that will accumulate to make a meaningful difference. Let's buy just the food we need so we throw away less. Let's accept that produce can be top quality and delicious even if it has a slight imperfection in appearance. Let's bring meals home that we don't finish in restaurants. Small changes will yield big results.

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Refrigeration containers, like this one at Jurong Port in Singapore, are part of the "cold chain" that helps keep food from spoiling, a major source of food waste.

What exactly is the "cold chain"?


Are there clever new technologies that could help improve that chain?

There are effective and affordable technologies to track and monitor food in transit to ensure it's being maintained within the proper temperature parameters. It's a proactive way to prevent spoilage at the distribution level. New entry-tier technologies are also being deployed to provide affordable truck refrigeration units for emerging markets like India. On top of that, environmental technologies like the use of natural refrigerants and energy-efficient technologies are lowering the environmental footprint of the cold chain.

How does one make these cold-chain technologies affordable in the poorest countries, where often the need is greatest?

We have to think differently. We can't take today's sophisticated refrigerated truck-trailer systems available in the U.S. and Europe and expect they can be immediately adopted in emerging countries. In many cases, the roads in these countries can't accommodate large truck systems, the technical skill is not yet present to support the systems, and the economy can't yet afford the systems. So we have to scale the technology to the local needs—smaller systems, fewer features, more affordable.

This interview has been edited and condensed.