A global hotspot analysis on food loss & waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions

Food loss & waste (FLW) and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are important issues faced by human society related to both food security and climate changes. To provide a renewed and more precise insights for decision makers, conducted a global hotspot analysis on FLW and the associated GHG emissions using the latest available data and recent literature. The results show that 1.7 Gt FLW and 2.1 Gt FLW-associated GHG emissions occurred globally in 2013. Bovine meat is a relatively small category in FLW but a significant hotspot for FLW-associated GHG emissions, especially for the consumer stage of North America & Oceania. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the FLW is huge for roots & tubers in the primary production and storage & handling stages which require infrastructure investments to upgrade the upstream supply chain. Understanding of hotspots is helpful to prioritize product categories for FLW interventions which will lead to the largest reduction of FLW and associated GHG emissions.