Food banks can prevent GHG emissions equivalent to taking 900 cars off road for a year: Data

Each food bank reduces the same volume of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as removing 900 gasoline-powered cars from the road for a year, according to estimates based on data from a new methodology termed as Food Recovery to Avoid Methane Emissions (FRAME). 

Food banks are essentially volunteer-driven initiatives that recover surplus food from different parts of the food system and distribute it to those facing hunger through community organisations. 

Likewise, FRAME methodology quantifies the avoided emissions and co-benefits from redirecting food loss and waste to direct human consumption, through food recovery and redistribution operations. The methodology is developed by The Global Food Banking Network (GFN), in partnership with the Global Methane Hub and the Carbon Trust.

The FRAME initially began as a pilot project in Mexico and Ecuador, where six community-led food banks were analysed. It was found that the organisations prevented a total of 816 metric tonnes (MT) of methane over a year, or an average of 136 MT each, by redistributing food that would otherwise have been dumped in landfills. 

Hence, this was estimated to be equivalent to each food bank avoiding the annual emissions of 906 gasoline-powered cars, or storing the same carbon as almost 63,000 tree seedlings grown for a decade.

The collective global impact of food banks in 2019 represented over 12 million tonnes of CO2 (tCO2eq) equivalent being avoided from being wasted. 

The impact also resulted in 75 million tonnes of nutritious surplus food saved from being thrown in landfills and over 66 million people facing hunger were served by the food banks within the network, according to a 2019 study commissioned by the GFN.

The food banks specifically address UN’s Target 12.3, which calls for halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses, by 2030.

Food and Agriculture Organization’s estimations mention that 14 per cent of the world’s food is lost after harvest before it reaches retailers. The United Nation Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report shows that an additional 17 per cent is then wasted at retail and then by the consumers. 

Food taken to landfills mostly generates methane, which traps more than 80 times more heat than CO2 over the first 20 years, making it a more potent gas leading to global warming in the short-term. 

Emissions that occur due to this food loss and waste (FLW) reached up to 9.3 GtCO2e (gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year) in 2017, according to a study published in journal Nature Food in 2023. 

On one hand, food systems were estimated to be responsible for around a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, half of which is caused by FLW, on the other, between 713 and 757 million people may have faced hunger in 2023, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report published in July 2024.  

In this context the new FRAME tool will allow food banks, food recovery organisations, private sector companies, scientific experts, and others working in the food loss and waste sector to be able to accurately measure and manage emissions from food recovery and redistribution. 

“The new FRAME Methodology provides strong and credible evidence that food recovery and redistribution reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also improving food security,” said Lisa Moon, president and chief executive of The Global Food Banking Network, which represents food banks in more than 50 countries.