19. February 2024

How climate protection projects influence Switzerland's food waste target

In Switzerland, over 2.78 million tons (=330 kg per person per year) of food are currently thrown away every year, even though it is still edible. According to a report by the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), this corresponds to a third of all food produced and causes a quarter of all emissions from the food industry. In order to reduce the environmental impact of avoidable food waste, Switzerland has committed to halving this by 2030 compared to 2017. This target would also mean that national greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 10-15%. But how can the target be achieved?

The majority of food waste occurs in households (38%), followed by processing (27%) and catering (14%). Many measures to reduce food waste can be implemented at home, such as targeted shopping, scooping smaller portions and using leftovers, e.g. in soups or salads. Food waste can also be avoided in companies through appropriate planning. There are more and more initiatives to reduce food waste, such as passing on food to employees or the needy. Innovations such as bread beer, where leftover bread is used to brew beer, can also play an important role. Passing on or reusing food is often associated with a coordination effort that makes these measures unattractive for companies.

Climate protection projects can play an important role in the implementation of such initiatives and measures. They also contribute to achieving the Paris climate targets. Projects must meet the following criteria in order to generate CO₂ certificates:

• Additionality: The project could not be implemented without the financing from the CO₂ certificates.
• Exclusion of double counting: The emissions saved and the retirement of CO₂ certificates are precisely recorded and only counted once.
  
• Independent third-party verification: Projects must be certified by a third party.
• No negative impact on the environment and society.

The CO₂ certificates are intended to help ensure that the project can be implemented and the relevant costs can be covered. They can also be purchased by companies that wish to make a contribution outside their system boundaries. The climate protection projects can take place both within and outside the company's value chain. To ensure quality, various standards such as the Gold Standard and Verra have developed methods for certifying carbon offset projects and calculating the amount of CO₂ reduced or stored.

In 2023, Verra published a new methodology (VM0046 Methodology for Reducing Food Loss and Waste, v1.0) that can be used to generate CO₂ certificates from the reduction of food waste. The aim of the methodology is to create an incentive for companies to take a closer look at the issue of food waste. It also aims to provide financial support for projects that could not be implemented without this support. The Verra method can be illustrated well using the example of bread beer. If a bakery cannot sell all of its bread, it can pass it on to a brewery. The brewery can replace some of the wheat with bread and thus reduce the beer's emissions. CO₂ certificates can be used to cover the costs of the additional work (e.g. transportation, coordination and more complex processing).

In order to calculate the amount of CO₂ saved, the baseline scenario and the project scenario are compared with each other, as shown in Figure 1. In the baseline scenario, the footprint of beer with freshly produced wheat is calculated. In the project scenario, the footprint of beer with stale bread is looked at. The difference between the greenhouse gas emissions from the reference and project scenarios gives the amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved. CO₂ certificates can now be issued for this amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved by reusing the stale bread if the criteria of a climate protection project are met.

In addition to the above criteria, the VM0046 method is subject to the requirement that the rescued food is still intended for human consumption. Therefore, no CO₂certificates can be generated if the food is used for biogas production or as animal feed. This also applies to feeding livestock such as chickens or pigs. Even if these animals become part of the human food chain again at a later date, the feed has left the human food chain at least once.

Do you have a project idea to reduce food waste and would like to check whether you can finance it through a climate protection project?

If so, please contact us and we will be happy to advise you on measures to reduce food waste or carry out a feasibility study for you. For customized advice, please contact Senior Consultant Luka Blumer.

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