Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Commission consultation, 1 October 2021
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Commission consultation: Inception Impact Assessment - Proposal for a revision of Directive 2008/98/EC on waste – part on food waste reduction target A copy of the Incpetion Impact Assessment is available on this site (click on image). The full consultation is available on the Commission website. See: Commission consultation: Food waste reduction targets. The consultation closes on 29 October 2021. |
The following is the initial section from the Inception Impact Assessment:
Context
As part of the European Green Deal, the European Commission adopted the “Farm to Fork Strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system” in May 2020 to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system and facilitate the shift to healthy and sustainable diets. To this end, the strategy aims at addressing, amongst others, food waste, and herewith announces the proposal of EU-level targets for food waste reduction.
This initiative also builds on Directive 851/2018/EC amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, which obliges the Commission to examine data on food waste provided by Member States with a view to considering the feasibility of establishing a Union-wide food waste reduction target to be met by 2030. To that end, the Commission shall submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council, accompanied, if appropriate, by a legislative proposal by 31 December 2023.
Furthermore, this initiative is in line with the priorities of the Bioeconomy Strategy (COM/2018/673) that aims at the deployment of a sustainable European bioeconomy that, inter alia, ‘can turn bio-waste, residues and discards into valuable resources and can create the innovations and incentives to help retailers and consumers cut food waste by 50% by 2030”.
The objective of the present initiative is to follow-up on these announcements through a revision of Directive 2008/98/EC on waste. The amendment of Directive 2008/98/EC may also include other targets related to waste prevention (as envisaged in Art 9(9) thereof). The Commission is therefore also considering the establishment of a target to reduce municipal waste, to which a food waste reduction target would significantly contribute. This interrelation will be addressed as part of the impact assessments supporting the establishment of these targets.
For the previous news item on this topic, see:
