Matt Homewood is an award-winning food waste campaigner on a mission to end supermarket food waste in Denmark and beyond. His urban harvesting exploits and blogging can be followed on his website: www.matthomewood.com, Instagram @anurbanharvester, and LinkedIn.
This Q&A was carried out by Clara Mottura, community engagement consultant at GGKP, in February 2022.
How did you become a food waste campaigner?
I was born in London in a very suburban area, feeling quite disconnected from nature and food production. Watching nature documentaries inspired me to study biology at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Then, I went on exchange to Uppsala University in Sweden where I had the opportunity to participate in many biodiversity workshops, including a five-week trip to China. In Yunnan, we compared mountainous-native forest to rubber monoculture fields: on one side we could witness natural biodiversity and on the other what was basically a green desert of human-made monoculture. That was a real eye-opener to me.
I decided to specialize on food systems because of the enormous environmental impact they have. Globally, food systems use 50% of ice-free land and agriculture is responsible for 80% of deforestation. Then, I came across the statistic that 40% of food is wasted from farm to fork, that’s between 1.2 and 2 trillion kilograms of wasted food every single year. Something switched as I realized that there are many things we could do to help the planet, but if we could reduce food waste from 40% down to, let’s say, 15% we would make enormous progress both for the environment and for the 700 million people who suffer from hunger today. That’s why I decided to work on this.
Dozens of perfectly eatable pizzas thrown away (credits: an Urban Harvester)
How is acting on food waste connected to the implementation of the environmental and social dimensions of the SDGs?
There are 690 million people who suffer from hunger and 1.3 billion people who suffer from moderate food insecurity globally. In total, there are 2 billion people who are seriously struggling to get by. At the same time, global food waste represents four time the amount of food that could solve hunger with immediate effect. Moreover, every year 50 billion chickens, 1.5 billion pigs, 545 million sheep, 444 million goats and 300 million cattle are slaughtered for human consumption. With 20% of global meat being wasted, approximately 11 billion animals’ lives are being mercilessly robbed for no reason whatsoever.
If food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the US. Global food waste is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, we forget it and only 6% of the Paris Agreement signatories have any target on food waste reduction in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
As a global community, we have collectively agreed on tackling food waste. SDG 12.3 states: "By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses."
The first section of SDG 12.3 sets a clear target – a 50% reduction. However, we have no explicit goal on food losses along production and supply chains. The language is lacking and that means that even if we were to reduce by 1% only, we would have successfully met our goal. In my opinion, we could do much better considering the urgency of the social and environmental crises we face.
Wasted meat (credits: an Urban Harvester)
Which actions are needed to avoid food waste both from an individual and institutional perspective?
It is important to differentiate consumer and commercial food waste. I think that consumer food waste is a matter of behaviour and from a lack of information that could be tackled by education. The UN estimates that close to 70% of humanity will be urbanized by 2050. This is likely to further weaken our connection to nature and to food systems. Dedicated environmental and food education is required to bridge this gap and inform people about what and how much they are wasting. In recent years, we have had multiple economic crises and yet people throw away around 30-40% of their food. It is totally illogical.
On commercial food waste, voluntary agreements have been tried in the past, but with very questionable results. I believe we need strong governmental action. One option would be to introduce a food waste tax to increase the the cost of waste. This could provide an incentive to food manufacturers and especially supermarkets to invest in anti-food loss solutions such as better inventory tools.
The solutions are there, but the cost of waste today is so cheap that supermarkets are very reluctant to invest in new technology. We should ask ourselves why supermarkets dumpsters are full every single night. Is that acceptable, with so many people being food insecure around the globe and climate change promising to worsen the situation? To me, the answer is no.
What is the Urban Harvester project?
I use social media networks to raise the profile of food waste, especially commercial food waste. Through my daily Urban Harvest photos in Copenhagen, my goal is to bring food waste statistics to life, showing how much perfectly eatable food is thrown away. Importantly, this is not just about me but is a global movement, and that’s why I reshare the work of other activists from around the world.
Matt with 60 discarded cartons of soy milk (credits: an Urban Harvester)
What do you hope the Stockholm+50 meeting will achieve?
With Stockholm+50, we have the opportunity to reflect upon the 50 years of environmental governance, cherishing its successes but also acknowledging what went wrong. For instance, we know that more than 50 years after the Stockholm Declaration, biodiversity has starkly declined globally, with for example a 68% reduction in population of many vertebrate species since 1970 (WWF 2017). On the other hand, we are witnessing a global movement of people asking for stronger environmental protection.
It’s time for bold choices and urgent action. Social media and social movements such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion have accelerated the conversation. Now we need to get policies in place, backed by strong political support and act. Our governments must regulate and encourage a more sustainable behaviour, whether that's investing in cleaner energy or through a food waste tax.
We need to cultivate action, so hopefully by the end of 2030, we can look back and say that 2022 was when the tide really started to turn. Tackling food waste could be a powerful accelerator and it should be put higher up on the agenda. That's definitely something I'd like to see from Stockholm+50 and beyond.