Carbon Credits for Food Recovery

Implementing Carbon Market Programs to Reduce Food Waste

In the United States alone, over 90 million tonnes of surplus food is generated each year – the equivalent of 149 billion meals – while one in seven Americans is food insecure. A small amount of this surplus food, around 2 percent, is redistributed to those in need through food rescue programs, with slightly more that is recycled through composting, anaerobic digestion and other methods. Despite this, the vast majority of surplus food is wasted and sent to landfills. Food waste makes up the single largest waste stream entering U.S. municipal solid waste landfills, about 24 percent, by weight, where it decays and generates greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranks food rescue (which they refer to as donation) as one of the most preferred food waste management methods ranked in their Wasted Food Scale, which accounts for both emissions and circularity impacts. Preceded only by source reduction, food rescue prevents food from being wasted and avoids the emissions associated with disposal by using it for its intended purpose of feeding people.

Recently, the voluntary carbon market and various project proponents have begun to recognize the opportunities for food waste prevention projects to enter into the market for their carbon emissions avoidance value. This project aimed to explore opportunities for food recovery carbon credit programs to incentivize carbon emission reductions in Minnesota.

Outcomes

The project team created an open access guidebook to share their findings, including:

• What they learned about the current state of carbon markets and food recovery’s role in them.
• The eligibility requirements and steps necessary to implement a carbon credit program.
• Existing opportunities for financial incentivization of food recovery and the carbon emission reductions that result.
• Concerns about the use of carbon markets to deliver on anticipated outcomes of food recovery.
• Insights gained from the Community Action Center of Northfield's successful implementation of a carbon credit program, which are highlighted throughout the guidebook as a case study example.