Increasing the recycling we collect from residents and business premises in England will be a much-needed boost to stagnating recycling rates.
They will also help to reduce millions of tonnes of food which is wasted annually in our homes, as well as play a key role in tackling plastic pollution. These are all vital tools in our response to the climate emergency, and which WRAP has been championing and working on for many years through our voluntary agreements. This month’s blog focusses on the UK Food Sector which faces an unprecedented challenge.
Through the WRAP Courtauld Commitment 2030, 76 food businesses are committed to cutting the absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the UK food system by 50% by 2030 (from a 2015 baseline). On paper, current odds would seem stacked against this ambition.
Recent research suggests the food system alone is likely to drive the world beyond 1.5C of global heating without urgent action; the need to transform the food systems to prevent this scenario has been long established. In the UK context, at WRAP we estimate the food we consume is responsible for around 35% of UK territorial GHG emissions.
Our UK food system GHG model has tracked food related emissions annually since 2015 and estimates a reduction of around 12% in overall GHG emissions 2015-2020, largely due to decarbonisation of the grid. Based on these figures, the average annual rate of reduction in GHGs will need to increase by 60% from its current trajectory for the remaining years to 2030 for the sector to meet its GHG target.
UK food businesses do not exist in a vacuum. The Committee on Climate Change is definitive that current policy initiatives from UK government relating to food lack the scope and ambition to meet our national GHG targets. Furthermore, despite widespread consensus that acting to achieve net zero is in the national interest, the Green Finance Institute estimates there is an investment gap of around £20bn in the UK preventing the necessary reductions in net GHG emissions relating to agriculture and land use.
It’s clear that more of the same isn’t going to cut it. However, climate despair and giving up is not a sensible option, nor is it remotely necessary. As part of our 2021 report on UK food system GHGs, we proposed a pathway of GHG reductions to meet the Courtauld 2030 target based on analysis of where this was feasible (see graphic below).
Graphic 1: Pathway 2030: Delivering a 50% reduction in the GHG footprint of UK food and drink
At WRAP we have seen in other contexts the power of collaborative action, the potential for progress on wickedly complex environmental issues and the potential for the UK to influence on these issues globally with world leading voluntary agreements. WRAP has demonstrated how the voluntary approach can deliver measurable outcomes, with the Courtauld Commitment reducing the UK’s food waste by 27% since its launch 17 years ago. In the last three years of reporting, the UK Plastics Pact has doubled the recycled content in packaging and driven the significant elimination (84% reduction) of unnecessary packaging. Transformation can only be achieved by working together.
We have also seen recently clear indications that leaders of large food businesses understand that global heating is an existential threat and have a desire to play their part in transforming it. The WWF Commitment For Nature has shown that significant portions of the extremely competitive UK grocery retail sector are willing to collaborate on transformative change. Following the latest pledge for action on GHGs from the WWF Commitment for Nature Group, we are now pleased to announce that we have secured commitment for phase 1 of the WRAP Retailer Net Zero Collaborative Action Programme under Courtauld 2030. The eight inaugural supporters of this programme*, representing around 80% of UK grocery retail market share, have agreed to work with WRAP and key partners through Courtauld to address the urgent challenges. The first is to ensure consistent measurement and reporting of their scope 3 GHG emissions. The second is help identify collaborations that can plug current action gaps and accelerate progress on the most material issues for reducing GHGs from the huge amount of our food that is sold in UK supermarkets.
