Biodiversity impact of food waste: Quantification for supply chain stages and products in Germany

Abstract

Reducing food waste could lower pressures on land resources and thereby contribute to the mitigation of global biodiversity loss. The reduction of food waste and biodiversity loss are also specified in the Sustainable Development Goals 12.3 and 15 of the United Nations. However, which supply chain stages and food products to target with policy measures is hardly known. Especially, a differentiation of the impact after sub-stages and taxa is still missing and is therefore quantified in the present study. The food waste mass at five supply chain stages and seven sub-stages in Germany was calculated and differentiated after 204 food products. All products were traced back to their countries of origin, in which their land use impact on mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and plants was quantified. A new approach was developed to calculate the detailed feed demand for animal products. Germany's avoidable food waste (food that was edible before its disposal) leads to 0.3 vertebrate and 1.5 plant species being potentially lost globally. Household-level waste is responsible for 47% of this species loss, while food services show the largest impact per mass, with individual catering being as influential as one-person households. The most influential products are obtained from pigs and cattle. Among vertebrate taxa, mainly amphibians are affected, occurring in the mainly affected country Brazil. The results can be used to formulate policies that target, for example, individual catering or display the impact of animal products and their feed demand.