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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

  • Publication | 2024

Food waste prevention calculator and Food waste action planner

This report describes the technical properties of two web applications developed by the Joint Research Centre in collaboration with the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety and the European Consumer Food Waste Forum. The web applications are part of the Toolkit to reduce consumer food waste, which were created and maintained by the Knowledge Centre for Bioeconomy for use on the European Commission’s Knowledge4Policy platform.

The Food waste prevention calculator is an interactive online tool based on Life Cycle Thinking to show the impacts and benefits of our food waste prevention action. It shares the environmental, nutritional, and cost benefits and trade-offs based on a number of choices of different food waste actions across the food supply chain. Users can identify and evaluate potential trade-offs when planning food waste prevention actions, which supports communicate about the actions results. The Food waste action planner tool provides an easy guide of evidence-based, concrete solutions to reduce food waste at the consumer level. The aim of the tool is to inspire practitioners on concrete examples on how to prevent food waste. All the proposed best practices have been evaluated and have information and links for others planning to do something similar e.g. in a school canteens. The two tools have been developed to serve practitioners in both public and private sectors, policy makers, businesses, schools, and other organisations engaged in food waste in EU Member States and beyond. They are developed using robust, stable applications and have proven to be user friendly and well appreciated by food waste experts. Download the report below.