Launch event: Food Waste Index Report 2024

Nancy: Hello everyone, and welcome to today's discussion on food waste reduction. I'm Nancy, and I'll be moderating today's session. Joining us today are experts from the US, South Africa, and Brazil, as well as representatives from UNEP and the Rap Foundation.First, we have a special presentation from Patrick Mink, senior policy officer for sustainable food systems at the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture. Patrick will be sharing closing remarks and discussing Switzerland's efforts in reducing food waste.Patrick: Thank you very much, Nancy. Excellent, colleagues, ladies, and gentlemen. The presentations and discussions during today's sessions have been extremely rich and insightful. We've seen several important developments towards the reduction of food waste happening globally, and the food waste index report 2024 also points to some areas of progress. However, we are not yet on track to reach SDG 12.3, and global efforts to fight food waste still require significant scaling up. In Switzerland, we have included food waste reduction as a key strategy in our national pathway for food systems transformation, and we've developed an action plan focused on public-private partnerships to reduce food waste. We are pleased to see that our approach is fully in line with the approaches put forward in the food waste index report 2024, and we will be happy to share our experiences with implementation of our action plan in the context of the next edition of the report.At the global level, Switzerland has been supporting efforts to reduce food waste for over a decade now, particularly through our collaboration with UNEP and in our role as co-chair of the One Planet Network's Sustainable Food Systems Program. We have helped enable UNEP's work on food waste measurement and the development of the SDG 12.3 indicator, and we supported the development of the food waste index report. While some may think that food waste is a problem primarily addressed at the national or local level, it is important to recognize that a large part of our supply chains are global in nature, and food loss and waste generate up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is also a global problem, as highlighted several times today. Switzerland remains committed to supporting international efforts to fight food waste as an important strategy to promote more sustainable food systems and address climate change.Thank you very much, Patrick. Before we wrap up, I'd like to extend my thanks to our expert panelists, who joined us from the US, South Africa, and Brazil, as well as to Clementine and Richard for their presentation on the Rap Foundation's work in reducing food waste. The report is online, and I look forward to seeing how things progress before the next report is published. Thank you everyone.