Page 8 - SGG_220316_Teachers_Handbook_Module_4

1. Sustainable Consumption & Production of Food

The globalized production and transportation processes of food have brought benefits for retailers and
consumers, that now have access to a huge variety of both fresh and stored food from all over the
world. On the other hand these complex processes lead to massive consumption of energy for trans-
portation and cooling systems.
“The food sector accounts for around 30 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption and accounts
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for around 22 per cent of total Greenhouse Gas emissions” (United Nations 2022)
Another major problem is the increased amount of food that is wasted without being consumed.

„Each year, an estimated 1/3 of all food produced – equivalent to 1.3 billion tons worth around $1
trillion – ends up rotting in the bins of consumers and retailers, or spoiling due to poor transportation
and harvesting practices.” (ibid)

The large number of companies and retailers within the production and transportation
chain increases the difficulty of implementing sustainable strategies for ecological frien-
dly production or energy efficient transportation. According to the United Nations Envi-
ronment Programme the way towards a sustainable production of food include the di-
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mensions of businesses, governments and citizens.
8 • Businesses should be supported with, financial aid, technical innovation, best practices or local
knowledge to achieve ecofriendly production and transportation.
• Governments should act by establishing regulatory frameworks, institutional setups, tariff de-
signing and subsidies & guarantees.
• Citizens should be made aware about the options and power they have as customers and be
ecouraged to have a willingness to pay for sustainable produced food.

A major challenge on the path from a general awareness and willingness to actual sustainable con-
sumption patterns is to make informed decisions when buying a product. There is a large number of
logos and labels trying to convince consumers, some of them present monitored standards, some are
just inventented by the production company itself to produce a better image. The following section
will give an overview on trustworthy labels for food to be presented students. As mentioned above,
this overview presents a general European perspective and might have to be adjusted for the situation
in different countries.

6 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/
7 https://www.unep.org/regions/asia-and-pacific/regional-initiatives/supporting-resource-efficiency/sustainable-food