The '123 Pledge' is a call to action for governments, companies, institutions and single entrepreneurs (like chefs) to prioritize fighting food loss and waste within their climate action agenda.
Organizations taking the ‘123 Pledge’ must meet a number of requirements designed to ensure impact, progress and transparency toward a worldwide goal of halving food loss and waste by 2030, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. Commitments must include a climate angle and be timebound and measurable. Commitments must also tie to at least one of five priority areas:
- Integrating food loss and waste reduction into country and company climate strategies;
- Reducing food loss and waste along supply chains;
- Stimulating action at the national and subnational (city) level;
- Measuring, reporting and creating policy and regulatory frameworks for food loss and waste reduction; and
- Supporting behavior change at the consumer level through awareness, education, and enabling conditions.
‘123 Pledge’ members are required to provide annual progress reports to the Food Is Never Waste Coalition or to the Champions 12.3. Annual progress reports will contribute to the Global Stocktake (GST), which will conclude at COP28 in 2023.
The 123 Pledge is coordinated by Champions 12.3, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It is also supported by WRAP, WWF, and Rabobank.
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Submit Your Commitment to the '123 Pledge'
- Bee The Change commits to rescuing 1 million surplus food bags from going to the landfill through their platform by 2025.
- Costa Rican FLW Network commits to improving its efforts in food loss and waste awareness, research and networking, resulting in at least three successful intervention cases by 2025, as expressed as a percentage of food loss and waste reduction – and its equivalent emissions – to be shared and scaled.
- Campagna Spreco Zero (Zero Waste Campaign) commits to implementing their application 'Sprecometro' (Wastemeter), which helps citizens prevent food waste by making each user register their daily waste amount and by highlighting the economic and environmental impacts related to it. This application serves as a way to provide education to the public, reduce food waste, and facilitate the transition to healthy and sustainable diets. The goal is to reduce the domestic waste of Italian families from the current level of 469.9 g per week to 352.35 g per week and reach 1 million active users on the app by 2030.
- Comida do Amanhã Institute commits to supporting circular urban food systems through knowledge exchange among cities, technical cooperation, and assessment and identification of best practices in Brazil. Each year they will support at least five new cities until 2025.
- Danone commits to drive breakthrough results in their operations to halve food waste by 2030, leading the transition to ‘best before date’ wherever possible whilst educating consumers, and joining forces with other partners to optimize food redistribution.
- Empauer commits to assisting food and beverage companies to help them examine and address where waste occurs across the supply chain in their efforts to meet the UN's SDG 12.3 by the year 2024.
- Entoprotech LTD committed to recycling more than 27,000 tonnes of food waste while reducing more than 942,000 cubic meters of GHG emissions from 2018 to 2022.
- FAO, during the period 2023 to 2030, commits to responding positively to all Members’ requests for support in: 1) raising awareness about the economic, social and environmental impacts of food loss and waste; 2) strengthening capacities to identify food loss and waste hotspots along the entire food supply chain; 3) measuring the levels of food loss and waste at these hotspots and implementing actions to reduce food loss and waste in a sustainable manner toward impacting the SDG indicator 12.3.1.a Food Loss Index; 4) and developing policy measures to support the reduction of food loss and waste.
- Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) commits to working with partners and country platforms to meet the call to action to halve food loss and waste by 2030. This will include 1) supporting governments with greater awareness, policy making and monitoring, 2) mobilizing collaboration and learning between different actors in countries and 3) leveraging global networks.
- The Global Cold Chain Alliance commits to having 75% of member facilities measure and report on food loss and waste occurring through the cold chain by the year 2025.
- The Government of The Netherlands commits to making an active effort to make the Farm-to-Fork Strategy more ambitious at the EU level. Now the Farm-to Fork Strategy aims to reduce food waste at the consumer and retail level. The Netherlands will make an effort, within the EU to achieve the goal of reducing food loss and waste in the entire food chain, under the Farm to Fork Strategy, which is at the heart of the European Green Deal.
- GreenPod Labs commits to preserving 10 million tons of fruits and vegetables in India by 2027.
- The International Food Waste Coalition commits to achieving a 50% food waste reduction by 2025.
- J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. commits to empower 2,500 food waste influencers with practical content for transforming leftovers in commercial and residential settings.
- La Mesa De Moras::Prodotti Naturali commits to reducing their total food loss and waste in their drop shipping business unit to less than 1 percent by 2030 globally.
- LeanPath commits to working with its client partners to prevent an amount of food waste equivalent to 50 million meals by 2025.
- Rumi Ide, Ph.D., CEO of Office 3.11 commits to 1) creating changes in legislation in Japan to reduce its current levels of food loss and waste by 2024; 2) collecting 1.5 tonnes of food through food drives and delivering it to families that are in need by 2026; 3) reducing 750 kg of food waste in her own personal home by 2027.
- Orbisk commits to helping every single food service venue in their clientele base achieve over 40% food waste reduction in the first 12 months of them using the company's technology and inspiring every kitchen outside of their client base with best practices and tips. They hope to reduce a total of 100,000 tonnes of food waste by 2026 as a result of this commitment.
- Rabobank commits to executing a new series of Food Waste Challenges in 2023 to help 75 foodservice clients in The Netherlands with an average of 35% food waste reduction. It’s part of Rabobank’s – a food and agriculture bank operating in this sector for 125 years – belief that reducing food loss and waste is one of the top three levers to reduce carbon emissions and is important work toward a dream of a net positive food system.
- Rocket Seeder is committed to supporting Australian researchers and entrepreneurs to commercialize their research and technology to reduce food loss and waste by 2030.
- The Scottish Government, in 2023, commits to embedding food loss and waste consideration across relevant policies and strategies, including the Good Food Nation Plan; the Local Food Strategy; and the Agricultural Reform Programme, as well as through the review of the 2019 Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, and their circular economy and waste Route Map to 2025 and beyond, to help meet their 33% food waste reduction target by 2025.
- Steven M. Finn commits to developing a graduate-level course and webinar/blog content to raise awareness and directly educate hundreds of citizens by the end of 2025 on the scope and scale of the food waste challenge, the critical linkage between food waste and the SDGs, and solutions and change initiatives to accelerate food waste reduction in line with Target 12.3.
- Stop Wasting Food Movement (Stop Spild Af Mad) commits to increasing awareness about food loss and waste and behavior change interventions that can be used to mitigate it by generating at least 1,000 media mentions about the topic by the end of 2030.
- Todos à Mesa Brazil Coalition commits to 1) redistributing 600 million tonnes of surplus food that comes from the companies that are a part of the coalition; 2) Influencing federal regulation in Brazil and proposing a more favorable regulatory environment that aids in the redistribution of surplus food; 3) disseminating information about food waste in Brazil and promoting knowledge about the topic in the country; 4) developing a data panel with available information on food loss and waste in Brazil in 2023.
- Too Good to Go commits to 1) encouraging and supporting governments in 10 countries to shape and improve food waste policy measures through its public affairs engagement; 2) rescuing 1 billion Magic Bags of surplus food from going to waste through its mobile app; and 3) raising food waste awareness with 250 million consumers through its awareness campaigns focused on date labeling, school food waste and more.
- TradeCafé committed to supporting Champions 12.3 by providing the initiative with a $10,000 grant.
- TransFoodMission commits to working with 50+ food and beverage companies to utilize their surplus and byproducts with excess production capacity and create accessible upcycled food products by the year 2028.
- Wasteless is committed to achieving more than a halving of food waste in the categories that they currently work on with L.Stroetmann, a leading Edeka Merchant in 2022. Additionally, they will enable their business customers as well as other retailers alike to halve waste in the relevant categories by the end of 2023.
- World Resources Institute commits to working through Champions 12.3 with farmer-facing companies to engage 200,000 smallholder farmers to start to tackle on-farm and near-farm food losses by the end of 2024, with a longer-term goal of those farmers halving farm and near-farm losses by 2030.
- WWF commits to leveraging its global network of offices to influence governments and industries to immediately meet the call to action.
- WRAP commits to deliver food loss and waste projects aligned with the Pledge impact areas in countries with a combined population of over one billion by the year 2030.
- Unilever commits to continue to focus on halving food waste in its direct operations by 2025. Hellmann’s brand will inspire and enable 100 million consumers every year till 2025 to be more resourceful with their food at home and waste less. They are expanding the geographical scope of their consumer-facing program covering North America, Latin America, and Europe with a country focus on the US, CA, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, UK, Spain, and Greece.
- University of Nairobi commits to train/build capacity of at least 1,000 practitioners and other stakeholders in the agri-food sector on best practices and technologies to help them reduce food loss and waste, by 2030. They will also raise awareness about food loss and waste in Kenya by organizing multi-stakeholder convenings every year to mark the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste.