Search Climate Insights Directory
142 results
SOUTH AFRICA KEEPING NATURE IN FOCUS
The report details the outcomes of a five-year partnership between WWF South Africa and Woolworths, highlighting achievements in sustainable seafood sourcing, water stewardship in key catchments, regenerative agriculture, and the reduction of food waste and plastic pollution.
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Document type: Report
I’m dreaming of a green Christmas
The guide outlines strategies for a more sustainable Christmas, focusing on reducing waste and energy consumption. Key recommendations include sourcing local trees, switching to LED lighting, consolidating online deliveries, reducing meat and dairy intake, saving food leftovers, and reusing packaging materials. These tips are framed against a global context where waste is predicted to increase by 70% by 2050.
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Document type: Guide
The climate impacts of producing building materials, plastics, and food
The document outlines policy and technical strategies to mitigate the climate impacts of food waste, emphasizing the need for federal funding to support state-level innovation, the potential for national landfill bans, and the importance of addressing environmental justice for communities located near waste sites.
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Document type: Briefing
Cooling as a Service with Virtual Cold Chain Assistant
The document outlines a CaaS model using the 'Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant' (Your VCCA) app to provide smallholder farmers in India with sustainable cooling facilities without upfront costs. The initiative aims to reduce food waste, which currently exceeds 40% of food produced in India, and increase farmer revenues by over 35%. A pilot program is scheduled for 2021-2022 in Bihar and Himachal Pradesh to demonstrate economic viability. The model targets the benefit of 1.5 million farmers, the abatement of 100,000 units of CO2, and the mobilization of USD 200 million for decentralized cold room projects within four years.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Cooling as a Service (CaaS) LAB INSTRUMENT ANALYSIS—INDIA REPLICATION
The report proposes a 'Cooling as a Service' (CaaS) model to increase smallholder farmer incomes in India by providing pay-as-you-go access to decentralized, clean-energy cold storage. This model, supported by the 'Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant' (VCCA) mobile app, aims to reduce food waste and allow farmers to sell produce during high-price windows. Financial modeling for apple farmers in Himachal Pradesh suggests that CaaS can increase farmer incomes by 36% and provide project internal rates of return (IRR) exceeding 22.5%. The initiative targets the mobilization of USD 200 million and the benefit of 1.5 million farmers by the replication phase.
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Document type: Report
Conservation in the Classroom Leftover Lunch—How Saving Food Saves the Planet
The document is a teaching guide from WWF-US focused on food waste, providing bell-ringer questions, informational resources, and lesson plans. It highlights that up to 40% of food produced globally is lost or wasted, with school cafeterias being a significant contributor. The materials include a 'Food Waste Warrior' toolkit for conducting school food audits and a worksheet that connects food waste to greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and resource consumption.
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Document type: Guide
Doing More with Less: Ensuring Sustainable Consumption and Production
The document traces the history of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) from the 1972 Stockholm Conference to the adoption of SDG 12, highlighting a shift in UN discourse from inter-generational equity and consumption limits toward a more business-friendly focus on innovation and decoupling. It notes that despite multilateral commitments, the global material footprint grew by 17.4% between 2010 and 2017. The brief advocates for a 'systems approach' and a transition from linear to circular material flows, while suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency necessitate a new economic paradigm that prioritizes social well-being and the common good over GDP growth.
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Document type: Policy brief
Towards a sustainable food future for Europe
The document argues that Europe's agriculture and food production systems require urgent transition to address the climate crisis and social challenges. It suggests that solutions for transforming production, consumption, and waste reduction exist across the food value chain and highlights the potential of EU policies, specifically the Farm to Fork Strategy, to facilitate this transition at both EU and global levels.
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Document type: Briefing
Toidujäätmete ja toidukao teke Eesti toidutarneahelas
Estonia generates approximately 167,000 tons of food waste annually, equivalent to 127 kg per capita. Households are the largest contributors, accounting for 48% of total waste and 40% of total food loss. The total monetary value of food wasted in the supply chain is estimated at €164 million per year. The report details waste patterns across sectors, identifying spoilage in households and inadequate sales planning in retail as primary drivers, while recommending strategic roadmaps, improved monitoring, and expanded food donation systems to reduce these losses.
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Document type: Report
LCA OF WASTE-TO-FEED DIETS FOR LAYING HENS
The study assesses the environmental performance of incorporating bakery byproduct meal, chemically-processed grocery food waste feed, and Black Soldier Fly larvae (BSFL) meal into laying hen diets in the US. Results indicate that while all alternative diets can reduce land use and marine eutrophication by replacing agricultural ingredients like soybean meal, they often introduce trade-offs, particularly increasing global warming potential and water consumption. Bakery meal showed the most modest impacts, whereas BSFL meal caused the highest increases in greenhouse gas emissions. The report concludes that the environmental benefits of waste-to-feed systems are modest and highly dependent on energy use, suggesting that renewable energy is essential to ensure positive outcomes and that preventing food waste remains the top priority.
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Document type: Report
Strengthening Southern Africa’s NDCs to Bolster Farmers’ Interests
The document argues that while most Southern African NDCs mention agriculture, they often lack quantifiable commitments, detailed financing plans, and inclusive governance. It recommends that revised NDCs explicitly include farmers as active agents of change, integrate gender and youth considerations, and establish multi-stakeholder platforms to ensure agricultural interests are reflected in climate action and sustainable development goals.
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Document type: Policy brief
Citizen Science to Reduce Food Waste
The paper explores how citizen science can help achieve SDG 12.3 by addressing 26 priority research questions on food loss and waste. It argues that citizen science serves as both a data collection tool and a catalyst for behavioral and policy change by building shared understanding among food system actors.
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Document type: Research paper
FARMING OUR WAY OUT OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS
The document argues that the food, agriculture, and land use (FALU) sector is a primary driver of climate change, contributing approximately 24% of global emissions. It details strategies for reducing emissions—such as improving ruminant livestock management, rice cultivation, and fertilizer use—and explores the potential of 'regenerative agriculture' to sequester carbon in biomass and soils. While acknowledging the potential for biosequestration, the report cautions that these sinks are temporary, subject to 'slowdown' as they reach equilibrium, and vulnerable to reversal through land-use changes or climate disasters.
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Document type: Report
Circular Jobs in Finland
The report uses System Dynamics modelling to forecast how circular economy (CE) interventions—such as extending product lifetimes and increasing recycling rates—affect jobs in Finland. It analyzes consumer electronics, textiles, food, mining, forestry, and buildings. The findings indicate that while some sectors like electronics and forestry may see net job gains due to the high labor intensity of recycling and refurbishment, others like textiles and food are projected to experience net job losses as reduced consumption lowers demand for primary production and retail.
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Document type: Report
Mitigating climate change: food consumption and food waste behavioral interventions
The paper catalogues 49 articles (containing 56 studies) and 18 literature reviews to identify research clusters and gaps in demand-side climate policies. It finds a concentration of research in the Anglo-Saxon world, a focus on animal protein and its substitutes, and a surge in publications since 2016. The authors identify specific behavioral intervention clusters—such as priming, defaults, and social norms—that are ready for systematic review, while noting a relative lack of research on food waste compared to consumption.
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Document type: Research paper
Eating for our planet
The document advocates for a shift toward 'planet-based diets' to reduce the environmental footprint of the global food system, which is identified as a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and habitat loss. It outlines five strategies for individuals: choosing sustainable ingredients, balancing animal protein intake with plant-based foods, diversifying crop and nutrient intake, prioritizing minimally processed foods, and reducing food waste. The guide emphasizes that these dietary shifts should be flexible to accommodate local cultures, budgets, and nutritional needs.
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Document type: Guide
Segaolmejäätmete, eraldi kogutud paberi- ja pakendijäätmete ning elektroonikaromu koostise ja koguste uuring
The study finds that the composition of mixed municipal waste in Estonia has remained largely stable over the last decade, with biodegradable and packaging waste each making up approximately 32% of the total. While the share of plastic and bio-waste has slightly decreased, there is a significant increase in paper and cardboard packaging, reflecting a decline in the use of traditional waste paper like newspapers. Separately collected packaging containers suffer from high contamination rates (28% on average), particularly in rural areas. WEEE collected at civic amenity sites is dominated by large appliances, heat exchangers, and screens, which account for 89% of the total weight.
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Document type: Report
How to Build a Circular Economy
The document advocates for a circular economy to replace the linear "take-make-waste" model, which currently results in over 60% of the 100 billion tons of resources flowing into the economy annually ending up as waste or emissions. It proposes three pathways for transition: consuming less, consuming better through sustainable choices and sharing platforms, and implementing systemic changes such as designing products for longevity and introducing policy incentives for recycled materials. The guide highlights that circularity in five key sectors could reduce CO2 emissions by 3.7 billion tons by 2050 and presents a $4.5 trillion economic opportunity.
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Document type: Guide
Exploring Gender Differences in the American Diet
The document examines the relationship between gender and climate-related food choices in the US, finding that women generally have higher risk perceptions and a greater willingness to adopt plant-based diets and reduce food waste than men, though they also report more uncertainty regarding specific dietary impacts on global warming.
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Document type: Research paper
Citizen Food Assembly
The document examines a citizen food assembly in York, UK, highlighting how participatory processes can drive sustainable food system changes, such as relocalising supply and reducing waste through 'food hubs'.
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Document type: Case study