Target 12.3: Halve per-capita food waste
By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
UNEP's Food Waste Index 2024 puts global food waste at 1.05 billion metric tons in 2022, with 60 percent from households, 28 percent from food service and 12 percent from retail. ReFED estimates 29 percent of the U.S. food supply went unsold or uneaten in 2024, worth 381 billion dollars, across farms, manufacturers, retail and food service. Grocers, restaurant chains and food manufacturers are public companies. Their conduct on measurement, donation, portioning and date labeling is a necessary lever for the retail and food-service share and influences household waste. Household behavior, municipal collection and losses on small farms after harvest lie outside corporate control. No industry lobbying against food-waste policy is documented. More than 30 food companies and associations, including Walmart, Amazon and Unilever, publicly backed the Food Date Labeling Act. With households responsible for 60 percent of the world's food waste and much loss on farms in developing countries, corporate conduct is necessary but far from sufficient. Owners supply a necessary input, and others must act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Filed food waste transparency proposals across the restaurant, grocery and beverage sectors in the 2025 proxy season.
3 campaigns on record
Disclose food waste measurements and establish targets for reducing it.
Result: not stated in source
Publish a food waste transparency report disclosing waste types, quantities and disposal methods, and set measurable timebound reduction targets.
Result: 10.09 percent of votes in favour at the meeting on 29 May 2025.
Track and annually disclose how much food waste the business generates and establish and disclose measurable reduction targets.
Result: 16.43 percent of votes in favour at the meeting on 6 March 2025.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.