PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Approximately one-third of the world's food produced for human consumption is wasted. Meanwhile, the expanding global population is placing intense pressure on the natural environment for food production, leading to pollution and increased greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore imperative that food waste be tackled at its core. In the EU, it is estimated that around 90 million tonnes of food are wasted per year, costing approximately 140 billion. The main culprits are households, but the processing and food services/catering industries, the primary sector and the retail/wholesale sectors also contribute. In Cyprus, an estimated 327 kg of food is wasted per person annually, the third highest level in the EU.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE FOODPRINT project conducted an awareness-raising campaign targeted at preventing food waste. This disseminated information on the scale of the problem, possible solutions and the benefits of reducing food waste. The project also aimed to strengthen collaboration between all actors in the food supply chain.
With its objective of minimizing food waste, LIFE - FOODPRINT supported the process of achieving Cyprus's circular economy targets and EU efforts to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 on halving per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030. The project also enhanced social consciousness on how to reduce, rather than recycle, as part of the EUs circular economy strategy, as well as supporting the Cypriot government and local authorities in fostering policy initiatives and economic incentives promoting the reduction and prevention of food waste.
RESULTS
The LIFE FOODPRINT project was a 32-month initiative aimed at raising awareness in Cyprus about the impact of food waste on the environment and to provide the Cypriot population and businesses of the Food & Hospitality Sectors with hands-on knowledge on how to reduce their food waste. Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project successfully achieved most of its set objectives. Its key achievement was a professional awareness campaign on all available media (TV, radio, Internet, print press) that disseminated information to a large percentage of the Cypriot population (reaching more than 800,000 people) about the scale of the food waste problem.
The project engaged businesses, consumers, and other stakeholders in discussions, highlighting the benefits of reducing food waste for individuals, businesses, and the environment through targeted awareness campaigns. It also created educational activities for primary and secondary school pupils (more than 5,000 reached), while its educational material has been incorporated in the online library of the country’s Pedagogical Institute and is available for >75,000 pupils of the country.
By increasing awareness and knowledge among the target groups, the project aimed to reduce the amount of food waste generated and wasted by participants in project activities, such as the Household basket. Businesses and consumers were taught how to adopt responsible behaviours and conscious consumption, in order to minimize their environmental impact in the future. Although the exact percentage of reduction in municipal waste going to landfills remains difficult to quantify due to local governance reforms, the project's efforts aimed to support the ambitious goal of waste reduction.
The project established a Collaborative Network for Social Food Donation, including an online platform that links directly food donors and receivers, which the project brought together through networking events. It also created an innovative online Foodprint Calculator, to be used by citizens and households, that provides insights on the monetary and energy costs of discarded food. Both outputs will continue to provide useful tools for the reduction of food waste in the country.
Finally, the project actively contributed to national Circular Economy targets, as well as to the further development of national policy on food waste by collaborating with government bodies and local authorities: its insights, results and outputs were directly incorporated in the National Waste Prevention Program for 2023-2029, while they have also been fed into the project LIFE IP CY Zero Waste, an integrated LIFE project that aims to strategically promote Circular Economy in the country.
