ISO 20001: Food Loss & Waste Management (Under Development)
Preview of ISO 20001 (under development) - a future standard for food loss and waste management covering measurement and reduction.
- Food Loss & Waste Reduction
- FLW Measurement & Reporting
- Prevention Hierarchy
- Supply Chain Coverage
- SDG 12.3 Alignment
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About ISO 20001-food-waste:Draft - ISO 20001: Food Loss & Waste Management (Under Development)
ISO 20001 (currently in development, expected publication approximately 2027) will establish requirements for a Food Loss and Waste (FLW) Management System - providing organizations across the food supply chain with a systematic framework to measure, reduce, and report food loss and waste. The standard is being developed in response to the global food waste crisis and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which calls for halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains by 2030.
Food loss refers to the decrease in quantity or quality of food along the supply chain from harvest to retail - occurring during production, post-harvest handling, storage, processing, and distribution. Food waste refers to the discarding of food that is fit for human consumption at the retail and consumer end of the supply chain. Together, food loss and waste account for approximately one-third of all food produced globally, representing a massive waste of natural resources, energy, water, and land, as well as a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing food in landfills.
ISO 20001 will follow the Annex SL high-level structure, making it compatible with ISO 14001 (environmental management), ISO 9001 (quality management), and ISO 22000 (food safety management). The standard will require organizations to establish an FLW policy, set measurable FLW reduction targets, implement a monitoring and measurement system for FLW quantities, identify and address the root causes of food loss and waste in their operations, and report on FLW performance using standardized metrics.
The standard will apply the FLW prevention hierarchy - a prioritized approach to FLW reduction that places prevention (avoiding FLW generation) above redistribution (donating surplus food), followed by animal feed, industrial uses, composting, and landfill as lower-priority options.
ISO 20001 will be used alongside ISO 14001 (environmental management), ISO 22000 (food safety), and the GHG Protocol Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard to build comprehensive sustainability management systems for food businesses.
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