US government departments have signed an agreement to renew their collaborative efforts to reduce food waste and loss in the country.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have renewed the Federal Interagency Collaboration to Reduce Food Loss and Waste, a programme to cut food waste in the country.

The development comes three weeks after these agencies announced a Biotechnology Regulatory Plan to implement regulatory reforms. In addition to the three departments, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has joined the partnership to expand its reach internationally, marking a significant expansion for the programme.

“By renewing this agreement and adding USAID into the effort, we affirm our shared commitment to coordinated action to reduce food loss and waste and educate Americans on its impacts and importance,” said agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack.

FDA commissioner Robert M Califf added: “The FDA is committed to achieving the goal of a 50% reduction of food loss and waste by 2030 through a whole-of-government approach in collaboration with the USDA, EPA and USAID.”

Public-private partnerships key to cutting food waste

In the US, 38% of all food goes to waste, worth a massive $473B. Much of this food waste is landfilled, responsible for 58% of methane emissions from solid municipal waste landfills. This waste also causes emissions equivalent to those of over 50 million gas-powered cars.

This is despite nearly 13% of households facing food insecurity at some point in the year. The amount of food lost or wasted could feed around 46 million Americans – or the entire states of New York and Florida combined, plus some change.

This is why the Federal Interagency Collaboration was formed in 2018. Renewed in December 2020 too, the alliance has published a draft national strategy to reduce food loss and waste and recycle organics, and is currently working to produce a finalised plan. It’s a step towards meeting the aforementioned goal of halving food waste and loss by the end of the decade.

The federal agencies will produce educational and guidance materials, and conduct outreach, community investments, voluntary programmes, technical assistance, policy discussion, and public-private partnerships. One example of a public-private alliance is the expansion of the US Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions, which has grown from 30 members in March 2020 to 50 now. These businesses have made commitments to cut food waste in half by 2030, and include giants like Danone, Smithfield Foods, Starbucks, Sysco, and Tyson Foods.

By joining the coalition, USAID enables the government to reach international stakeholders while leveraging federal resources better. Additionally, the agencies will work with external partners to help the private sector drive domestic and global efforts to reduce food loss and waste. The Federal Interagency Collaboration has also signed an agreement with non-profit ReFED to help evaluate the technical implementation of food waste strategies.

These actions will allow them to reduce GHG emissions, help households and businesses save money, and build cleaner communities. “Individually and collectively, each of these agencies is working to combat food loss and waste from farm to table,” said Vilsack.

USDA has invested $57M to address food waste

Alongside the agreement, the USDA has also announced $4M in funding for the cause through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture. This is directed to a $1.5M Center for Research, Behavioral Economics and Extension on Food Loss and Waste, and a $2.5M Pilot Consumer Education Campaign on Food Loss and Waste.

The centre, led by Purdue University, will conduct research and outreach on policies addressing food system inefficiencies, focusing on underserved audiences and the next generation of young adults. It will further develop a National Extension Food Loss and Waste strategy in line with other federal guidance.

Ohio State University, meanwhile, will lead the pilot programme to develop educational messages to help cut household food waste, lessons from which will be used to create an integrated education programme for local consumer food waste reduction campaigns.

The USDA has invested a total of $57M from the American Rescue Plan Act to reduce food waste and loss. This includes a $30M investment in the Composting and Food Waste Reduction cooperative agreements; $15M in community food projects and sustainable agriculture research grants to get surplus food to those in need and develop connections between food producers and recovery organisations; and $10M in Food and Agriculture Service Learning Program awards to educate children and youth about the issue.

Globally, nearly a third of all food produced gets wasted or lost, according to the UNEP’s Food Waste Index Report 2024. Household waste alone accounts for 60% of the total. Overall, this amounts to 8-10% of the world’s emissions, but the UNEP suggests that cross-sector collaborations like the 2030 Champions can help decrease food waste and its impact on climate and water stresses.

“Public-private partnerships are one key tool delivering results today, but they require support: whether philanthropic, business, or governmental, actors must rally behind programmes addressing the enormous impact wasting food has on food security, our climate, and our wallets,” said Harriet Lamb, CEO of food waste charity WRAP, which co-authored the UNEP report.

The post USDA, FDA & EPA Renew Agreement for Programme to Reduce Food Loss & Waste appeared first on Green Queen.

Lower sugar, lower emissions, lower waste – it’s a chocolate bar that can do it all, and uses it all. Can this sustainable indulgence save chocolate and the world?

Switzerland is renowned as one of the chocolate capitals of the world, whether we’re talking commodity, high-end, or a bit of both. So as cocoa crops and chocolate bars face an uncertain and increasingly volatile future, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the home of Nestlé, Lindt, Toblerone, Cailler and Frey is hoping to lead the fight for the industry’s survival.

It may sound like an exaggeration – but just look at the data. Thanks to disappointing harvests, cocoa prices have been on a wild ride over the last year, reaching all-time highs in recent months. In April, a ton of cocoa was priced at over $12,000 – for context, it was under $2,500 in January 2023.

Crop failures have driven a third consecutive year of cocoa shortages, and it’s those on the farm who are the hardest hit – large chocolate companies continue to line their pockets. While investment in the sector is dwindling, the climate crisis is a major culprit. Scientists are warning that a third of cocoa trees could die out by 2050, just as chocolate production continues to decimate the planet.

Dark chocolate is the second-most polluting food (behind only beef), thanks in large part to the widespread use of palm oil, a major source of deforestation. While farmers in Ivory Coast, the largest cocoa producer, are truly feeling the heat, more than 85% of the forest has been lost since 1960. This is why the EU and the UK are introducing bans on importing deforestation-linked cocoa – although these come with their own strings attached.

Suffice it to say: chocolate and our sweet tooth are in trouble. Some startups are developing cocoa-free and lab-grown, with future chocolate bars featuring “less cocoa or none at all”, as one writer puts it. But researchers at ETH Zurich, the public research university in the Swiss capital, are going the opposite route, making chocolate that contains all of the cocoa fruit, and just the cocoa fruit.

It’s part of an Innosuisse (the state innovation agency) project, where a research team led by ETH Zurich professor Erich Windhab worked in tandem with cacao fruit startup Koa and Swiss chocolate manufacturer Felchlin to develop a recipe for the novel chocolate.

Finetuning a game-changing cocoa gel

Consider the honeydew melon. It has a large outer shell, and, when you cut it open, you encounter the flesh, as well as the seeds and pulp. Cacao fruit is similar.

Cocoa beans are the seeds of this fruit, but very little of the plant actually ends up in the chocolate bars we buy. It’s why you see cocoa percentages on packaging, as they’re mixed with some kind of sugar, fat and other flavourings.

But ETH Zurich researchers have managed to tap into the flesh as well as the outer shell – or the endocarp – for its ‘cocoa-fruit chocolate’. This is important because they represent 70-80% of the fruit, and are usually discarded, making it one of the world’s most wasted fruits. Making use of these parts of the plant can open up a new income stream for farmers, revive degraded landscapes, and produce clean energy too.

It’s something startups like Pacha de Cacao, Cabosse Naturals (owned by Barry Callebaut), Blue Stripes and CaPao are already harnessing. However, many of these applications rely on cacao fruit as a byproduct – the team at ETH Zurich is treating it as an ingredient in its own right. This also helps remove the reliance on other industries – like palm oil and sugar – to create end products.

Here’s how they replace everything else to make it an all-cocoa bar. They take the endocarp, dry it, and turn it into a fine powder. This is then mixed with part of the pulp and heated to form a cocoa gel, which is extremely sweet and can replace the sugar used in conventional chocolate. The cocoa mass, meanwhile, is made from the beans – so the only thing left over is part of the thin outer husk, which is traditionally used as fuel or composting material.

While that might sound simple in theory, there was a lot of back-and-forth to find just the right recipe, with various tests assessing the texture of different compositions in the lab. Too much cocoa gel? It’s a clumpy chocolate. Too little? Not sweet enough. Finding the balance between sweetness and texture was hard, something that isn’t an issue when you just use powdered sugar.

Finally, though, they settled on a maximum gel ratio of 20%, which gives you the same amount of sweetness as a bar with 5-10% powdered sugar content. This is still much below the 30-40% threshold of regular dark chocolate, but the perceived sweetness was still palatable to taste testers from the Bern University of Applied Sciences, who tried chocolates weighing 5g each. They contained varying amounts of powdered sugar or cocoa gel.

“This allowed us to empirically determine the sweetness of our recipe as expressed in the equivalent amount of powdered sugar,” said Kim Mishra, lead author of a study based on the research, and R&D lead at plant-based meat pioneer Planted.

Dual benefits of sustainability and health carry mass appeal

Mishra and his team are excited about the health and environmental benefits of their creation. They carried out a life cycle analysis comparing conventional chocolate to their process both at lab-scale and commercial levels, revealing that their cocoa-fruit chocolate would have a lower climate footprint – in terms of global warming potential, and land and water use – if produced at scale.

The nutritional factor is another plus. As new players come up with ways to reduce sugar – either by using novel sweet proteins or by turning it into dietary fibre – the ETH Zurich chocolate boasts a higher fibre content (15g per 100g) compared to average European dark chocolate (12g), thanks to the use of the cocoa gel as a sweetener.

This translates to a 20% increase in fibre, as well as a 30% decrease in saturated fat, at a time when gut health is all the rage. “Fibre is valuable from a physiological perspective because it naturally regulates intestinal activity and prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly when consuming chocolate,” said Mishra.

“Saturated fat can also pose a health risk when too much is consumed. There’s a relationship between increased consumption of saturated fats and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases,” he added.

He argued that small-scale farmers can diversify their offerings and increase incomes if the whole cocoa fruit can be marketed for chocolate production. “Farmers can not only sell the beans, but also dry out the juice from the pulp and the endocarp, grind it into powder and sell that as well,” he said. “This would allow them to generate income from three value-creation streams. And more value creation for the cocoa fruit makes it more sustainable.”

But it may be a while before you see cocoa-fruit chocolate in your local supermarket. “Although we’ve shown that our chocolate is attractive and has a comparable sensory experience to normal chocolate, the entire value creation chain will need to be adapted, starting with the cocoa farmers, who will require drying facilities,” said Mishra.

To that end, ETH Zurich has filed for a patent for its chocolate recipe. “Cocoa-fruit chocolate can only be produced and sold on a large scale by chocolate producers once enough powder is produced by food processing companies.” You can’t help but think that its partnership with Koa and Felchlin will only continue to serve this purpose. And who knows, maybe your Lindor balls will be filled with cocoa gel soon.

The post This Chocolate Is Made With All Parts of the Cocoa Fruit – and Nothing Else appeared first on Green Queen.

Two food waste warriors let us in on their efforts to turn surplus food into a sustainable dining experience in a city that throws out over a million tonnes of food each year.

Hong Kong may be known as Asia’s World City, a melting pot of cultures with great food and a penchant for elevated dining experiences, but the city – like most others in the world – has a major food waste problem.

Every day, 3,600 tonnes of food and 13 million rice bowls end up in the city’s landfills – estimates suggest that 30-40% of Hong Kong’s municipal waste comprises food waste. But only 4% of all this waste is recycled, which doesn’t bode well for the city’s climate action plan, which aims to reduce emissions by 26-30% by the end of the decade.

It also doesn’t bode well for Hong Kong’s food insecurity problem, which affects a third of all its citizens. Over 7.3 million people live in the city, and eat an average of 2.85kg of food each day. Roughly calculated, the amount of food that goes to waste could feed nearly 1.3 million of its residents – that’s almost equivalent to all Hong Kongers living under the poverty line.

Tackling food waste has multipronged benefits for the city, and that’s exactly what The Rescued Feast, a sustainable dining experience that made use of surplus food destined for waste, sought to highlight on April 25.

Organised by food-saving app CHOMP, media company TMS and charity More Good, the event rescued food from CHOMP’s F&B vendors, which were transformed into light bites led by More Good head chef Mike Silva. It showcased how food scraps can be turned into nutritious meals, raising awareness about Hong Kong’s food waste problem.

With nearly 200 attendees, The Rescued Feast managed to save 230kg of food, equating to about 460k for CO2e. The success means it is now the first of a series. After the event, Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras – who attended the dinner – spoke to CHOMP founder and CEO Carla Martinesi and TMS founder Krystal Lai about the initiative, their goals, and the importance of fighting food waste in Hong Kong.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

Sonalie Figueiras: How did you both come together to create this event?

Krystal Lai: It’s been a long time in the making. About a year ago, Carla approached me with the idea of hosting an event using food waste and scraps. We were both super excited by the potential to transform these into a high-end event that could shift perceptions about food waste. Having volunteered with More Good several times, I was familiar with their mission, space, and team, which led us to the natural conclusion: why not host the event right here?

When we first reached out to the founders of More Good, their excitement matched ours. Carla and I feel incredibly fortunate that the event was such a success, and we’re excited to turn it into a series.

SF: Where did the rescued food come from? Why was it going to be wasted?

Carla Martinese: The food scraps were collected from various CHOMP Partners & Friends (such as LSG Sky Chefs, Airside, Bon-Eat-O, Bones & Blades, PermaClub, Slowood and Agrician). Like many F&B businesses, there are all sorts of reasons for food to be wasted, and [it’s] never intentional. Reasons include: bad weather (thus fewer customers), weather-damaged produce, miscalculations, inability to sell before the expiration date, and some of it was the scrapped ends of fruits and vegetables like pineapple peels.

SF: Can you share more about More Food, the location of the event?

CM: More Good is an F&B charity based in Hong Kong that serves hundreds of freshly cooked meals to the elderly, homeless and refugee communities across Hong Kong. Its beneficiaries include Impact HK and Refugee Union. Their location in Chai Wan hosts events to raise money for charities and also doubles as a soup kitchen space where people can volunteer their time to make food for the needy.

SF: Who were some of your favourite partners for this event? Why did you choose to work with them?

CM: With so many sponsors involved, it’s hard to choose. A big shout-out has to go to our food scrap vendors who graciously donated their clean scraps for us to reuse into another meal. We’d have to say our favourite partner had to be More Good.

SF: What worked and what didn’t?

CM: I think everything worked the way we hoped it would, we ran this as a pilot to test if the concept could even work, and it did! In terms of what didn’t work (or what we can improve) is coordinating with restaurants to collect food scraps for the event. Every good dish should involve some sort of protein element and it was really difficult to source that as a scrap. Luckily, on the last day, we had Bon-Eat-O come through with their seafood protein. That’s something we’d have to focus more on next time.

SF: How can you ensure The Rescued Feast’s guests will continue to stay motivated to fight food waste beyond the dinner?

CM: We hope this dinner served as a reminder to guests that food can be given a second life, that sometimes it’s not just a scrap bit of food that can be thrown away. If you’re choosing to eat out, consider ordering less or taking food home to cook into another dish the next day. Research, learn about your food and get creative. Or even easier, use the CHOMP app to save food from restaurants from going to waste instead.

SF: In a perfect world, what’s your goal with this event? Do you want to do more?

CM: Our goal was to bring more awareness to Hong Kong’s massive food waste problem. With the MSW law [which will charge sectors based on the amount of municipal waste they create] getting postponed to August, garbage has been a spotlighted story across the city. Unfortunately, a lot of the focus has been on plastic with the new ban, but the reality is food waste makes up 40% of the landfill, which is more than any other item – and not much has been done to combat this. 

Our aim is to make this event a series and spotlight local vendors, and the food-saving mission.

SF: How aware are people in Hong Kong about food waste?

CM: Unfortunately, not as much as we’d like them to be. With no consequence to waste food, it’s not in a lot of people’s minds. It’s been a struggle to educate on the environmental consequences of food waste on the planet. We’ve seen a shift in mentality over the years through CHOMP, especially in schools and individuals, but there’s still a long way to go.

SF: Why should people care about food waste in Hong Kong?

KL: I think it’s important on numerous fronts. Environmentally, food waste contributes further to greenhouse gas emissions, specifically methane and our environmental footprint. It’s also economic and social, though. Hong Kong spends a lot of money on food that goes to waste, which just means that resources and capital are being tied up on redundant processes and products that aren’t used or consumed. Think about the produce, the delivery, and the processing of the waste.

This is why I think the MSW law is a big step in the right direction. As waste is – for most – such an “out of sight, out of mind” problem, this will really force businesses and individuals to think twice about consumption, including food consumption.

Lastly – and this is something that I feel quite passionate about – it’s also about social equity. In a city like Hong Kong where rent is sky-high and poverty and food insecurity exist, it feels paradoxical to have significantly high levels of food waste when you have people a lot closer than you probably realise who need help.

SF: What does the Hong Kong government need to do to help fight food waste better?

CM: I think improving the public education on the state of the planet and how individuals can affect change too. Support local businesses who are pushing to do good for the city like CHOMP and More Good. Work with local stakeholders such as farmers, food producers and retailers to develop solutions to reduce food waste on every level.

The post CHOMP & TMS Founders Carla Martinesi & Krystal Lai on Tackling Food Waste in Hong Kong appeared first on Green Queen.

Hilton has rolled out zero-waste menus at four of its hotels in the UK as part of its ESG strategy, alongside a low-waste menu at nearly 20 additional sites.

On Stop Food Waste Day (April 24), Hilton launched zero-waste menus at multiple UK locations, which will run for the next month and feature offerings like vegetable stalk sauces and bruised fruit cocktails. This is in addition to a new low-waste menu that will be implemented at 18 of its UK sites.

As one of the world’s largest hospitality operators, it has set out a target to halve waste sent to landfill by 2030 (from a 2008 baseline), and implement a food waste reduction programme in every hotel kitchen. The initiative will see chefs at London Hilton on Park Lane, Hilton Manchester Deansgate, Hilton London Metropole, and DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole curate zero-waste dishes.

“As chefs, we are the catalysts for positive change and have the opportunity to set the bar for sustainable dining,” said Paul Bates, executive head chef at the London Metropole hotel, where the menu costs £40. “Our menu inspires diners to embrace new flavours, while empowering them to lead the charge when it comes to tackling food waste.”

From breakfast buffet puddings to food waste pickles

Food waste is one of the most pressing climate change challenges. According to the UNEP’s latest Food Waste Index Report, more than a billion tonnes of food is thrown out each year, which equates to a third of all food that makes it into our kitchens (this excludes the 13% of food lost to spoilage, rejection or other factors in the supply chain).

While households account for a majority of this share (60%), the foodservice sector is responsible for a sizeable chunk too (28%), binning 131 million tonnes of food. The UNEP estimates that food waste is responsible for 8-10% of all emissions, and climate experts have highlighted the need to decrease this by half by 2030. Separate research has shown that hotels waste 79,000 tonnes of food annually, and the hospitality industry alone accounts for 12% of all food wasted.

This underscores the importance of Hilton’s waste-free menus, titled Taste of Zero Waste, although why this is a month-long initiative and not a permanent one remains unclear. The dishes harness a range of culinary techniques that serve as a way to show commercial food operators how simple steps can either eliminate or significantly reduce food waste.

These involve root-to-shoot and nose-to-tail cookery, where often unused parts of meat and seafood like salmon cheeks and ox hearts are utilised, alongside repurposing produce scraps like vegetable stalks, trimmings and peelings (which can be fermented to make sauces and stocks, or used to make chips or top risottos) and bruised or overripe fruits for cocktails.

Hilton’s hotels will also substantially reduce food waste from breakfast buffets by using pastries, bread, fruit and coffee beans to create puddings. Another technique involves collecting surplus fruits and vegetables destined for the bin and preserving them through pickling.

“These dishes have been designed to demonstrate the best-in-class techniques in use across our hotels all over the world every day – brought together to raise awareness of our ambition to continue reducing food waste across our operations, simultaneously empowering guests to make more mindful choices and inspiring them to reduce waste in their own kitchen at home,” said Emma Banks, F&B strategy and development VP at Hilton Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Hilton’s food waste commitments build towards net zero

The Taste of Zero Waste menus build upon Hilton’s numerous food waste initiatives. This includes Winnow, the British AI-led platform that tracks, measures and reduces food waste in commercial kitchens. It has helped over 200 hotels make these cuts, with some Middle Eastern Hilton hotels experiencing a 61% drop in breakfast waste.

In the UK, Hilton works with local suppliers to reduce food miles and ensure the year-round use of seasonal produce. One such farm is Growing Field, which supplies all vegetables and herbs for the restaurant at Manchester Deansgate, providing a list of what’s available each week.

The London Metropole site has been working with surplus food charity the Felix Project since 2020, when its kitchen was turned into a community hub during the pandemic and prepared thousands of meals for those in need, all the while using up surplus food. To date, the hotel has provided 75,000 meals as part of the collaboration, which will now see a meal donated for every dish purchased from the Taste of Zero Waste menus.

“The launch of these new menus marks another step in the global fight against food waste,” said Banks. “Conscious dining isn’t just a trend; it’s a deeply held value that guides where we all choose to indulge and unwind.” Over the coming year, the hotel giant – which has set a net-zero target for 2030 – plans to roll out the zero- and low-waste initiatives across its EMEA sites, 67 of which have adopted food waste reporting systems.

The post Taste of Zero Waste: Hilton Introduces Waste-Free Menus at 4 UK Hotels appeared first on Green Queen.

Aeroporti di Roma has announced a collaboration with Danish surplus food platform Too Good To Go, which will be rolled out at both airports in the Italian capital.

Passengers travelling from Rome’s Fiumicino or Ciampino airports will now be able to buy surplus food that is otherwise destined to be wasted at one of 32 food outlets.

This is thanks to a partnership between Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) – the operator of both airports in Italy’s capital – and food waste platform Too Good To Go. The latter is the world’s largest surplus food service and, last year alone, it saved over 121 million meals from going to waste (a 46% increase from 2022). That meant it saved 100 billion litres of water, and prevented 28,554 tonnes of CO2e from entering the atmosphere. As the company puts it: “That’s the equivalent of over 57,000 passengers flown around the world.”

It’s perhaps fitting, then, that it has now inked a deal that will allow passengers flying from Rome to help save food too. “We are committed every day to making the prevention of food waste a good habit for everyone, everywhere. So we are very pleased to make it possible finally, for everyone setting off from the airports in Rome, to save food that is still good to eat,” said Mirco Cerisola, Too Good To Go’s country director for Italy.

Addressing food waste to meet sustainability goals

The partnership will see Too Good To Go’s service be available at food venues including Autogrill, Chef Express, Lagardère Travel Retail Italia, MyChef and Venchi. ADR – whose airports served over 44 million passengers last year – says the idea is to raise awareness among both passengers and people working in the aviation industry about the importance of reducing food waste, and educate them on the surplus food recovery project.

The operator has set out an aim to rescue 12,000 meals by the end of the year, which in turn will help save over 32 tonnes of CO2 emissions, nine million litres of water and 33,000 sq m of land. This would represent a big step in the right direction for the Fiumicino Airport, which is the country’s busiest and – according to the 2024 Airport Tracker – Europe’s ninth most-polluting airport.

“The strong spirit of cooperation that has always distinguished our relationships with our commercial partners has allowed us to reach this significant milestone,” said ADR’s chief commercial officer, Marilena Blasi.“This is a further sign of our attention and care with regard to passengers and to the airport community that sees the airport as its home and will now enjoy an additional opportunity to help protect the environment by preventing food waste and actively participating in the sustainable values and policies of ADR and its partners.”

ADR’s climate goals are contingent on achieving six UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Responsible Production and Consumption and Sustainable Cities and Communities. It says 98% and 65% of the waste produced at Fiumicino and Ciampino was sent to recovery plants in 2020, respectively.

The operator had also acquired two electromechanical composting machines to create a composting plant that can process 1,000 tonnes of food waste created by restaurants and bars at the airports each year. Its self-composting of organic waste takes place in the local area itself, and the compost is used in the “green areas” of the airports to directly enhance the facilities on site.

Too Good To Go’s global growth will benefit Rome’s airports

The ADR-Too Good To Go collaboration will enable passengers and industry employees to buy the startup’s Surprise Bags, which contain a range of food that may be approaching or have just passed its best-before date, but is still good to eat. These can be bought at a discounted price from participating stores at both Roman airports.

This isn’t the first time Too Good To Go – which is available in 17 countries – has expanded into an airport; it has previously inked deals with airports like Manchester, Brussels, Munich, London Heathrow and Geneva, among others. But entering Rome is a shrewd move, given it’s the capital of a country that threw away 30kg of food per capita last year, rendering €7.5B in economic losses. And this is an upward trend, with food waste increasing by 8% from 2022.

The UN’s SDG 12 – one of the sustainability pillars of ADR’s operations – has set a target of reducing per capita food waste by 50% across consumer and retail levels, and cutting food loss across supply chains by the end of the decade. This is key because at present, a third of all food produced globally goes to waste, and is responsible for 8-10% of global emissions – to put that into context, that’s five times higher than the total emissions of the aviation industry.

For ADR, the Too Good To Go collaboration won’t be something that will go amiss – after all, the app has over 85 million registered users (about a quarter of whom joined just last year). In 2023 alone, it added its service to 72,000 stores globally.

“Of all the environmental challenges we face, food waste is undoubtedly the dumbest,” Too Good To Go CEO Mette Lykke said in its latest impact report. “But dumb mistakes call for intelligent solutions.”

The post Rome Airports Partner with Too Good To Go to Tackle Food Waste appeared first on Green Queen.

Unilever-owned mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s Canada has partnered with Italian sustainable fashion label ID.Eight to launch a limited-edition collection of sneakers made from food waste.

Mushrooms, corn, apples and grapes – these may be part of your next meal, but they also might be in your next shoe. That’s the idea behind the new sneakers unveiled by Hellmann’s in partnership with ID.Eight, which are part of the mayonnaise giant’s ongoing food waste awareness campaign.

The 1352: Refreshed Sneakers take their name from a disturbing statistic – it’s a reference to the amount of money ($1,352) Canadian households spend on food that goes to waste each year. The campaign is meant to highlight the impact of food waste in Canada, and promote conscious consumption amid the cost-of-living crisis.

“With 1352: Refreshed Sneakers we’ve created a visual representation of Canadians’ food waste, aimed at sparking conversation and challenging consumers to take small steps to reducing that $1,352 amount of food that’s wasted each year,” said Hellmann’s Canada senior brand manager Harsh Pant.

New sneakers part of Hellmann’s food waste campaign

With their yellow, white and blue hues, the new running shoes are reminiscent of Hellmann’s mayonnaise bottles. They were designed by ID.Eight, a Florentine brand known for making vegan, eco-friendly sneakers using food waste from produce like apples, corn and grapes. The sneakers are made up of materials derived from each of these ingredients, alongside waste from mycelium and sugarcane.

“Hellmann’s commitment to using local ingredients and their mission of reducing food waste complements ID.Eight’s commitment to using sustainable and quality materials, making them a natural partner for us,” said ID.Eight co-founder and brand manager Giuliana Borzillo.

One study suggests that 58% of all food is wasted or lost in Canada, but 32% of it could be redirected to support its communities – nearly seven million Canadians (over a sixth of its population) suffer from food insecurity. This also translates to 56.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly $50B in economic losses.

Tackling food waste should be an environmental and social priority, as pointed out by the UNEP. “Hellmann’s has a longstanding history of taking the necessary steps to address, raise awareness, and reduce food waste,” said Pant. The 1352: Refreshed Sneakers are part of its Make Taste, Not Waste campaign, which was launched in 2018 to fight this issue.

This has involved the four-week-long Fridge Night challenge, dedicated Super Bowl ads for the last four years, a partnership with Ogilvy for use-what-you’ve-got recipes, a Smart Jar that revealed hidden messages when placed in fridges at 5°C or lower, and a Meal Reveal tool to provide recipe ideas from what people have in their fridges.

Canadians can enter a draw to win a pair of the limited-edition sneakers, and each entry will see Hellmann’s donate the equivalent of 10 meals to food waste charity Second Harvest. An accompanying website page hosts leftover recipes using the ingredients found in the shoes. The brand has also committed to providing a C$25,000 ($18,300) donation, which it says would provide enough healthy food for 75,000 meals in Canada.

Unilever walks back on climate pledges

While Hellmann’s has certainly made some strides in raising food awareness around food waste and sustainability, its parent company, Unilever, has been in the crosshairs of environmentalists lately.

Long seen as an environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) leader, the CPG giant last week announced that it was abandoning or watering down some of its climate and social goals, in the wake of increased pressure from shareholders to focus on financials first.

Unilever has a net-zero commitment for 2039, with its scope 3 emissions the main area needing attention (they make up 98% of its footprint). A month ago, it had announced its target to reduce absolute scope 3 emissions, cutting energy and industrial emissions by 42%, and forest, land and agriculture by 30% come 2030 (from a 2021 baseline).

However, CEO Hein Schumacher told Bloomberg that the company has now updated some of its ESG goals. This included delaying a goal to make 100% of its plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable, changing its target to halve virgin plastic use by 2025 to reduce it by only one-third by 2026, lowering its goal to source 100% of its key crops sustainably to 95%, and slashing its promise to protect 1.5 million hectares of land and oceans to a million hectares instead.

Unilever’s commitment to pay all direct suppliers a living wage by 2030 now just covers half of the suppliers making up its procurement spending by 2026. The business has also dropped several pledges, including a commitment to spend €2B per year on diverse businesses globally, having 5% of its workforce be comprised of people with disabilities by 2025, and making all its ingredients biodegradable by the end of the decade.

And while Hellmann’s is asking people to waste less food, Unilever itself has abandoned its goal of cutting food waste in its operations by 50% by 2025.

Similarly, Unilever’s intention to roll out carbon labels on the packaging of all 75,000 of its products by 2026 seems to be at a standstill. “It is possible that some of our brands may wish to communicate product carbon footprints in the future, and for this having accurate data is essential,” a company representative told Green Queen last week.

“We also know information must be provided in context to be meaningful to consumers,” they added, outlining that the business was “committed to improving transparency of GHG emissions” in its value chain. “Our collection of more accurate data will help Unilever to make more informed procurement decisions as we work towards our climate targets.”

The post Hellmann’s Hops Into Shoe Space with New Sneakers Made from Food Waste appeared first on Green Queen.

Swedish packaging solutions startup Saveggy has raised SEK 20M (€1.76M) to scale up its plastic-free, plant-based coating for fruits and vegetables, starting with cucumbers.

Lund-based Saveggy’s latest funding round of €1.76M was led by Unconventional Ventures, with additional participation from LRF Ventures, Almi Invest GreenTech, and angel investors.

With the twin goal of reducing plastic pollution and food waste, Saveggy will use the funds to produce its edible plant-based coating for fruits and vegetables at an industrial scale. Its first product is called SaveCucumber, which features a thin, invisible layer made from oats and rapeseed oil.

“We believe that freshness, the health of our planet, and the well-being of people should always remain uncompromised,” said co-founder and CEO Arash Fayyazi. “With this financing round, we will launch at industrial scale our first product.”

The pedigree of Fayyazi and his co-founder Vahid Sohrabpour (who is the chief innovation officer) was a major attraction for its lead investor, with Unconventional Ventures general partner Thea Messel saying: “Our investment in Saveggy was driven by the impressive credentials and substantial expertise of its founders. Their innovative technology tackles the significant challenges our food systems face.”

Killing two birds with one coat

Fayyazi and Sohrabpour launched Saveggy in 2020, describing it as a modular, customisable protection technology that can meet the requirements of different fruits and vegetables. According to the UN FAO, 45% of the world’s fruits and vegetables end up going to waste. Globally, we bin a billion household meals every single day, despite 780 million people (just under 10% of the population) facing hunger.

According to the UNEP, food waste contributes to 8-10% of global emissions. Making significant reductions in the amount of food we throw away is crucial to achieving climate and sustainable development goals relating to global heating, food security and biodiversity protection.

Meanwhile, plastic pollution – which relies on petroleum-based products – contributes to 3% of all greenhouse gas emissions (which is higher than the emissions impact of the aviation industry). Single-use plastics like those used in food packaging are devastating to the planet, especially marine life and aquatic systems, which end up back in our food system and present health threats to humans as well.

Plastic packaging is a massive problem for the food industry’s emissions (which account for a third of all emissions). In the US, for example, 63% of all municipal solid waste generated in 2014 comprised packaging materials for food and other purposes – only 35% was recycled or composted. But plastics offer a few key advantages for companies: they’re cheap to produce, they prevent water loss, they keep bacteria out, and they prolong the shelf life of produce.

Clearly, though, better solutions are needed. Saveggy’s offering isn’t a like-for-like substitute for plastic – it’s an altogether packaging-free alternative. It will benefit fruits or vegetables that have edible peels, adding a thin layer of its zero-additive plant-based coating that preserves freshness and shelf life.

Cucumbers, for example, which are 95% water and where moisture retention is crucial for freshness – after all, nobody likes a limp, shrivelled cucumber. Saveggy’s SaveCucumber innovation acts as a protective shield, preserves the water content, and slows down oxidation, extending the shelf life of an uncoated, unpackaged cucumber by three to four times.

Impressing legislators and investors alike

“We are excited and proud to support the team at Saveggy and their innovation in reducing food waste, advancing sustainable agriculture, and proactively complying with upcoming plastic waste regulations,” said LRF Ventures investment director Martin Alexandersson.

In March, the EU agreed to ban single-use plastics for fresh fruit and vegetable packaging (among other applications), in response to the rise in packaging waste in the region. This means all packaging in the bloc must be recyclable by the end of the decade, and starting next year, recyclable packaging will need to be recycled at scale – in 2020, only 38% of plastic packaging waste in the EU ended up being recycled.

Such regulations will raise the stock of startups like Saveggy, which claims to be the only plastic packaging alternative offering the same shelf life extension, and the only company to be given the all-clear from the EU for edible fruit and produce coatings. And the bloc has recognised its potential too, with the European Research Agency and the European Commission providing it with a €440,000 grant under the Eurostars programme last year.

For its SaveCucumber product, cucumbers are harvested, washed and dried, before being coated with the invisible layer. The company is also working on similar coatings for other produce like bananas, bell peppers and aubergines. Its investors will now look to leverage their supply chain networks to extend Saveggy’s presence to more distributors.

“We were particularly impressed by the founders’ perseverance, having refined their formula multiple times to meet the highest standards,” said Messel. “This unwavering commitment to innovation and sustainability aligns perfectly with our mission as impact investors and made our decision to partner with them clear.”

Saveggy is testing its products with partners, and will enter a market populated by the likes of industry leader Apeel (US), Sufresca (Israel), PolyNatural’s Shel-Life (Chile) and Liquidseal (Netherlands), all of which are making plant-based coatings for fruits and vegetables. Boston-based Foodberry (formerly Incredible Foods), meanwhile, is reverse-engineering fruit skins to make edible packaging for snacks.

The post Saveggy Raises €1.76M for Plastic-Free Edible Cucumber Packaging appeared first on Green Queen.

Unilever-owned mayo brand Hellmann’s has rolled out an AI-enabled tool that uses an ingredient scan to produce recipes that can help households use up food and reduce waste.

Launch your camera app, scan your fridge, and your phone will tell you what you can cook tonight.

That’s the promise of Hellmann’s new Meal Reveal tool, which leverages AI tech from Google Cloud to allow households to use up the ingredients they have lying around and decrease the amount of food that’s binned. It was unveiled in the UK during climate action charity WRAP’s Food Waste Action Week (March 18 to 24).

Hellmann’s aims to tackle the UK’s huge food waste problem: excluding the inedible parts of food, about 6.4 million tonnes of food that can be eaten goes to waste in the country every year, according to research from WRAP. Households alone account for 73% of this figure, throwing away £17B worth of food – this includes nearly three million potatoes, a million whole bananas, 1.4 million tomatoes, and the equivalent of 25 million slices of bread.

This translates to 95kg per person or 247kg per four-person household annually. All this despite 7% of the British population – or 4.7 million adults – living in food poverty, and food waste accounting for 4.3% of the UK’s overall GHG emissions.

Something has to change, and that’s what Hellmann’s Meal Reveal app is trying to do. “People never set out wanting to throw food away. Food waste is an unintended consequence of our busy lives, where we look in the fridge after a long day and see disparate ingredients but nothing to eat,” said Hellmann’s global VP Christina Bauer-Plank. “We saw an opportunity here to create a straightforward, easy-to-use tool.”

Using AI-generated recipes to cut food waste

Hellmann’s designed Meal Reveal in response to what it calls ‘fridge blindness’, a common contributor to household food waste. It refers to situations when you have a full fridge of ingredients, but you can’t see or imagine what meals to make. It’s an extension of the mayo maker’s Make Taste, Not Waste campaign, which was launched in 2018.

The international initiative has entailed challenges like the four-week-long Fridge Night, dedicated Super Bowl ads for four years running, as well as a partnership with Ogilvy for use-what-you’ve-got recipes and a Smart Jar that revealed hidden messages when placed in fridges at 5°C or lower (following a study that revealed three million UK fridges are running too warm, and spoilage can be delayed by three days if food is chilled below 5°C).

Meal Reveal provides “time-saving and convenient” solutions to consumers “struggling to make sense” of how the food in their fridge can be turned into a meal. Here’s how it works: users scan food in their fridge using their phone cameras, sharing it in the app either via video or uploading images. The generative AI tech then identifies the ingredients, and matches them with recommended recipes for a quick, simple meal.

“Meal Reveal is powered by the latest Google technology where a simple scan of the leftover ingredients lets you see the delicious potential in your fridge, in the palm of your hand,” explained Bauer-Plank. The Unilever-owned mayo giant says it “inspires more than 200 million people across the world to be more resourceful with their food” every year.

The app leverages Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform to identify individual ingredients. Its search tool combines with Unilever’s proprietary algorithm to filter through a recipe database, coming up with dishes that may not seem obvious, encouraging culinary creativity. This extends Hellmann’s longstanding partnership with the tech giant.

“We were excited to create the innovative solution Meal Reveal to a persistent challenge of seeing the possibilities of the food in our fridge,” said Laurence Lafont, Google Cloud’s strategic industries VP for EMEA. “In its nascent stage, the more people use Meal Reveal, the more the tool will learn ingredients in our fridges and help provide the best recipes to use up what we already have.”

Public-private partnerships key to tackling food waste

The Meal Reveal launch came around the same time WRAP and the UNEP released their 2024 Food Waste Index Report, which revealed that about 32% of food across the global supply chain goes to waste, racking up $1T in economic losses, just as 783 million people go hungry and a third of the population faces food insecurity.

Alarmingly, households around the world throw over one billion meals every day (which is a very conservative estimate), equivalent to 1.3 meals daily for every person impacted by hunger. In 2022, households accounted for 60% of total food waste, amounting to 631 million tonnes. The commercial food sector isn’t faultless, though, with the foodservice industry responsible for 290 million tonnes (28%) and retail accounting for 131 million tonnes (12%).

Apart from the food insecurity issues, food waste also has a major climate footprint, contributing to 8-10% of global emissions (five times higher than the entire aviation industry). Additionally, with over a quarter of agricultural land transferred to produce food that is eventually wasted, intensive farming displaces wildlife too.

The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework linked the problem with biodiversity loss and set out a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030. Similarly, one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals targets a 50% reduction in per capita food waste and a decline in food loss across the supply chain in this period.

However, only 21 countries – including Cabo Verde, China, Namibia, Sierra Leone, and the UAE – mention food waste or loss reduction in their nationally determined contributions towards global climate goals. “With the huge cost to the environment, society, and global economies caused by food waste, we need greater coordinated action across continents and supply chains,” said WRAP CEO Harriet Lamb.

Nations like the UK, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and South Africa have significantly cut food waste since 2007. “If countries prioritise this issue, they can significantly reverse food loss and waste, reduce climate impacts and economic losses, and accelerate progress on global goals,” noted UNEP executive director Andersen.

The Food Waste Index outlined the importance of public-private partnerships in tackling the food waste epidemic. But these require support, whether that’s philanthropic, business, or governmental, said Lamb. “Actors must rally behind programmes addressing the enormous impact wasting food has on food security, our climate, and our wallets,” she explained. “To take a collective approach is to recognise that no one actor can solve the problem alone, and that collaboration can create a movement that is more than the sum of its parts,” the report stated.

The post Meal Reveal: Hellmann’s Launches AI Recipe Tool to Cut Household Food Waste appeared first on Green Queen.

Christina Dean, founder and CEO of Redress and The R Collective, speaks to Green Queen about the evolution of sustainable fashion, what she’s learnt in her 17 years as an activist, and the impact of online shopping and e-commerce.

A decade ago, we spoke to sustainable fashion icon Christina Dean, founder of the Hong Kong-based charity Redress, who said she felt a personal responsibility towards a green, low-impact lifestyle. “I do what I can throughout my life streams, from the values I teach my children about not wasting resources and about caring about what happens to our future world to the consumption choices I make on a daily basis,” she said.

Then, five years on, we caught up with Dean again, who had begun The R Collective, an offshoot fashion brand from Redress. She reflected upon the future of sustainability, female leadership, and zero-waste supply chains. “We all have a slightly different relationship with fashion, and it is okay. Wherever you are within the fashion industry, make your bit more sustainable,” she suggested.

The Redress charity was founded in 2007 and works on inspiring positive environmental change and promoting sustainability in the fashion industry by reducing textile waste, pollution, water and energy consumption. The R Collective, meanwhile, was launched in 2017 as a circular fashion brand that uses rescued textile waste, sourced from luxury brands, mills and manufacturers and upcycling these materials into elegant clothing pieces. A quarter of its profits go back to Redress. “We all need to satisfy our desire for creativity, but it should not come at the cost of the planet,” Dean explained in 2019.

Now, we touched bases with the activist and entrepreneur again, exploring the changes she’s seen in the fashion industry, her growth as a leader, and the evolution of Redress, 17 years from launch.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

Green Queen: We interviewed you 10 years ago (and five years ago too). A lot of the data shows waste is getting worse. How much has changed when it comes to fashion, waste and the Redress mission?

Christina Dean: Redress is 17 years old, and it was fashion’s horrific waste rates that led me to start an NGO focused on reducing textile waste. I stumbled upon fashion’s waste and pollution problems purely by chance as a journalist writing on environmental pollution. At that time (2005/06), fashion’s waste was a ‘hush-hush’ issue, basically swept under the carpet.

Seventeen years on, the cat’s out of the bag on fashion’s highly wasteful and polluting ways. We have data that makes everyone – from the C-suite to everyday citizens – sit up and take notice. One headline estimates that the equivalent of one dumper truck of textiles is either landfilled or incinerated every second around the world. As if that wasn’t a smack in the face, it’s estimated that textile waste is set to increase by about 60% between 2015 and 2030. Left unchanged, the fashion industry is projected to use 26% of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. So, this spells very bad news for the planet.

So with a worsening situation, you might wonder what on earth have we been doing for 17 years if all that we’re seeing is a worsening textile waste landscape! Yes, the reality can be quite dispiriting because, on a bad day, we might feel like we’re on a sinking ship. But on all good days, which are most of them, we continue to strongly believe that the fashion industry is a highly impactful industry to influence positively, so we forge on.

In terms of our mission, over the last 17 years, we have adapted our first founding mission three times to reflect the changes in the problems and solutions that we seek to influence. We’ve gone from “promote sustainable fashion” to “reduce waste in fashion” to now “accelerate the transition towards a circular fashion system by educating designers and consumers to reduce fashion’s negative environmental impacts”. Despite these apparent changes, the essence of our spirit and resolve is unchanged, and that is, basically, to shift fashion from being a polluter to a pioneer.

GQ: How much have you changed as a leader and activist in that time?

Christina Dean: I’ve grown up so much in 17 years, in so many aspects of my life and work. Looking at the fashion industry, I’ve gone from the early days of pointing angry fingers at various parts of the fashion industry to now wholeheartedly understanding that we must embrace the industry and work within the reality of business and its various parameters. I am very pro-industry as a sustainable way to drive long-term change.

I have also put my pointy fingers away when it comes to consumers. I used to be relatively frustrated and judgmental about what could be considered rather negligent consumers who shop until they drop, so to speak. I am now humbler and more understanding about why consumers love to shop, the deeper psychological desires underpinning this, and I also accept why many are not really that interested in sustainable fashion issues, with so many other competing worries, like how to pay their bills being one obvious example.

I guess 17 years of life – that saw us found Redress and The R Collective and have four kids and get divorced – has given me a better understanding of life and self. So I’m more accepting of the disorder around me, whether that’s in the office, in the supply chain, in an ESG report, or in my own head! Despite this acceptance, I’ve not mellowed at all. I see the urgency to act as being greater than ever before, and so my focus and resolve are as they ever were. I just realise that change happens slowly and that our work is just a few little sprinkles of goodness at this point in time.

GQ: What’s your biggest learning, 17 years later?

Christina Dean: I’ve come to respect the fashion industry, its suppliers, its spinners, weavers, farmers, etc., very deeply, and I see such wonderful and enormous talent, generosity, determination, and humanity and love throughout the business. I’ve met the most incredible activists working in the fastest and cheapest of the big fast-fashion brands; I’ve met recyclers with bigger brains than their machines; and I’ve met CEOs with more conviction for change than prolific activists.

So I’ve come to realise that the humans behind the machines, spreadsheets, steering wheels, and boardrooms of fashion are pretty amazing people, who bring optimism to the challenges at hand. We are all only human, against some inhumanly complex issues, so I’m lucky to work with incredible people.

GQ: Did you plan for Redress to become this big? Was this always your plan or did it get bigger than your original ideas?

Christina Dean: Redress becoming what it is today is a bit of an accident really. When I founded it, I never thought for a moment that 17 years on, I would still be as passionate and excited about the mission as the day I decided to start it. I’m lucky that I am a curious and collaborative person and that this, coupled with a good sense of humour and a glass-half-full nature – which is important when certain things hit the fan! – have enabled Redress to rise from a toddler, tween to teen.

It’s my dream that Redress survives without me – I’m always watching out for that bus; you just never know! We are well on our way now, with a strong board, great executive director and senior management team, and with a longer-term strategy and fundraising approach.

We have a saying at Redress: “I’d rather be a pirate than join the navy.” And this sums up our spirit, so each day remains a hustle in the office as we’re always on our toes for the next rollercoaster ride.

GQ: Did you foresee the negative effects of e-commerce and online shopping?

Christina Dean: Not really. I would not call myself highly astute at consumer trends and habits. That said, it’s obvious that when something becomes cheap and convenient, it takes off. This is as true for takeaways as it is for buying clothes online. So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the proliferation of e-commerce, especially during COVID, has changed the way we buy clothes – i.e., more, more, more – as indeed e-commerce has changed how some clothes are produced – i.e., more poorer quality fabrics can get away with it online.

I remain shocked by e-commerce’s high return rates, which are around 30% of all purchases globally. I’m personally not a very ‘typical’ fashion consumer, in that I don’t sit around online surfing for clothes that I don’t really want/need, so I find it surprising that people would overconsume styles and sizes and then post clothes back. I’ve seen firsthand the waste this creates because many businesses are unable, for various reasons, to get their customers’ returns back.

The post Q&A with Redress & The R Collective Founder Christina Dean: ‘Our Work is Just a Few Little Sprinkles of Goodness Right Now’ appeared first on Green Queen.

Exercise can be more sustainable now, thanks to Community Clothing’s new Organic Athletic sportswear line, which is free from plastics and can decompose in your garden in as little as a week.

Community Clothing, the sustainable clothing brand and social enterprise by Scottish fashion designer Patrick Grant, has launched a plastic-free and compostable sportswear line, inspired by clothing materials from the 70s.

Called Organic Athletic, the 13-strong range eschews the typical use of non-biodegradable, oil-based synthetic plastic materials – chiefly polyester, nylon, polyurethane and elastane – in sports clothing, and opts for plant-based textile technology instead.

70s materials inspire new sportswear range

“Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile wearing cotton shorts, a cotton vest and leather shoes. And I played rugby as a kid wearing clothes made from all natural materials,” Grant told the Financial Times. “None of us thought we were wearing rubbish stuff at the time.”

His childhood inspired him to explore “if it was possible to make good sportswear out of the materials we used until the late 1970s”. The new collection is a result of five years of R&D, comprising shorts, sweatshirts, T-shirts and running vests.

Made from woven or knitted certified organic cotton, as well as natural Austrian woven rubber for the shorts, Grant sourced organic athletic wear from this period on eBay. Finding most of them in Germany, he reverse-engineered each piece to assess its yarn count and durability. He explained that the toughest part was to replace elastic use.

“Elastics are made from elastane, which is synthetic and oil-based,” he said. But it’s a key tool for durability, given cotton threads are susceptible to breakages. “We had to beef up the diameter of the thread.” The resulting collection – for both men and women – is fatter in appearance, but carries a retro look akin to vintage college varsity kits, and is suitable for a variety of sports and training activities.

Sportswear’s plastic problem

Plastics and synthetic fibres like elastane (made from polyurethane), nylon, polyester and acrylic have been used in sportswear for decades for stretchability and breathability, quick-drying and waterproofing capabilities, and thermal protection. While some brands have turned to recycled fibres for eco-friendlier clothing, they still shed microplastics into the oceans and soil.

These are harmful in more ways than one. Scientists suggest that a third of all plastic waste ends up in soil or freshwater, disintegrating into microplastics that enter the food chain. These tiny particles have already been discovered in the human body, and one study estimates that we eat 5g of microplastics per week on average (about the same as eating a credit card’s worth of plastic). In fact, there are 14 million tonnes of microplastics on the ocean floor and 24 trillion pieces of microplastic on the ocean surface.

But there is an awareness issue here. A 2023 survey by global sail racing league SailGP – covering 1,500 people in the UK, US and Switzerland – found that 54% of respondents were unaware of potential toxins hiding in synthetic technical sportswear. Having said that, 72% said they’d prefer plastic-free sportswear if available. It’s these attitudes that prompted plastic-free fashion label Mover to debut a six-piece capsule collection in collaboration with SailGP, made predominantly from organic cotton, merino wool and water-based printing methods.

And while UK-based Stripe & Stare offers a TENCEL Modal-based shirt that it claims is 100% biodegradable, it contains 5% elastane. It makes the Community Clothing Organic Athletic one of the only (if not the only) sportswear ranges that are both plastic-free and compostable. Once they reach the end of life, these clothes can be shredded and added to your compost heap – within a short time, ranging from a week to five months depending on your soil, they will fully decompose and leave no remains.

“Community Clothing Organic Athletic represents the most radical change in sportswear in two generations,” Grant said in a statement. “Moving away from oil-based sports clothes to 100% natural and biodegradable means now you can exercise and play sport and not harm the planet in the process.”

The post Is This the World’s First Compostable, Plastic-Free Sportswear Range? appeared first on Green Queen.