Integrating policies to tackle food waste and
supporting the social economy
Benefits for the EU and its Member States
Feedback published its policy recommendations based
on the results of FLAVOUR, an innovative project funded by the EU’s
Interreg 2 Seas Mers Zeeën 2014-2020 programme that aims to tackle food
waste while supporting inclusive jobs in the social economy. Report
author Isabela Vera explores the key findings.
Food waste is a key climate issue, and reducing food waste can provide benefits for both the environment and society.
Wasted food is responsible for around 6-8% of global human-generated
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the EU, around 88 million tonnes of
food waste are generated annually, at a cost of 143 billion euros and
accounting for approximately 20% of total food produced.
For the EU to meet its target of
halving food waste by 2030, cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at
least 55% by 2030 and reaching climate neutrality by 2050, food waste
reduction must be prioritised — firstly by preventing food surplus, then by supporting the food surplus sector to effectively redistribute food waste that cannot be prevented.
In this second area of action,
policymakers have significant opportunities to leverage the effective
distribution of food surplus as a pathway to achieving other critical
social objectives. This includes supporting the social economy and
providing employment to people who are far from the labour market, a
term used to describe people who face barriers to accessing meaningful
work as a result of social or economic marginalisation.
Labour market inclusion is a key goal of the EU’s Green Deal and EU COVID Recovery Plan,
and as the Commission’s recent Joint Employment Report 2022 indicates,
rising labour and skill shortages in some sectors will require an
additional focus on participation on adult learning.
A thriving social economy is critical to achieving these objectives:
with 2.8 million social organisations and entities in Europe, social
economy organisations provide nearly 14 million jobs. Social
organisations that aim to integrate vulnerable workers play a
particularly important role in building inclusive economies.
A 2020 study by the European
Network of Social Integration Enterprises (ENSIE) of nearly 400 such
organisations in 10 European countries found that among 10,136
disadvantaged workers, 80% remained in employment after their first
placement. 40% of these workers were women, which is important because
of the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s
labour market participation.
Around
a third of the organisations that ENSIE surveyed were active in the
food, restaurant, or canteen sector, demonstrating their potential to
solve social and environmental challenges related to our food system.
FLAVOUR,
an innovative food waste project funded by the EU’s Interreg 2 Seas
Mers Zeeën 2014-2020 programme, has supported European social
organisations like Panier de la Mer in France and the cities of Brugge, Mechelen, and Antwerp in the
Flanders region of Belgium to employ individuals from marginalised
communities to redistribute food surplus to people living in food
poverty or re-valorise food surplus into new, delicious products.
The project’s findings have been clear:
while we can’t rely on food surplus organisations to solve the problems
of food waste and food insecurity, they can provide valuable employment
to people who face barriers to accessing the labour market.
However, many organisations in
the sector struggle to access the capital they need for adequate
staffing, infrastructure, and processing facilities. They also struggle to navigate complex EU regulations
that place limits on the length of government-subsidised work contracts
and the training given to marginalised workers. This results in these
workers being forced to leave their positions before they’re ready to
re-integrate into the labour market in the long term.
"The EU should seriously consider investigating the harm it is doing to the social economy by putting free-market principles first.”
~ Gorik Ooms
“It would be fair to say that,
overall, and especially in countries where the social economy is still
in its infancy, the EU is supportive [of the social economy],” says
Gorik Ooms, a policy advisor at Herw!in, FLAVOUR’s managing
organisation. “However, the EU’s preoccupation with free-market
principles, and the tight restrictions it puts on state aid as a result,
is becoming a serious obstacle. The social economy relies on
public responsibility and therefore on states, representing the people,
supporting individuals and communities. That means state aid. State aid
often is a good and necessary thing, and the EU should seriously
consider investigating the harm it is doing to the social economy by
putting free-market principles first.”
Better policymaking in support of
a circular economy, waste management, and employment in the EU and its
member states can create opportunities for social organisations like the
FLAVOUR pilots make use of surplus food while creating employment for
people who are far from the labour market. Along with targeted efforts
to prevent food surplus from occurring, policymakers need to further
support the social economy, including organisations fighting food waste,
by:
- Revising the European Commission’s General Block Exemption Regulation, which currently strictly limits state support for social organisations hiring marginalised workers. This revision could start by re-framing the currently binary distinction between economic and charitable activities in the EU and allowing for longer contracts and more training to be subsidised by state aid in the social economy.
- Subsidising the activities of social organisations working with food surplus using funds from companies who create food waste in the first place, following the principles of “polluter pays”.
- Streamlining national or regional laws that impact social organisations’ capacity to hire people far from the labour market.
- Mainstreaming gender equity and social inclusion into the process of matching food surplus organisations with workers from work-integration prorgrams, particularly given the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women workers and workers with marginalised identities
"To tackle food waste from the source, the EU will need to introduce a binding 50% food waste reduction target from farm-to-fork for all Member States."
~ Simon Martens
“Employing vulnerable people to
redistribute food surplus is not the solution to food waste or food
insecurity,” says Simon Martens, a project manager at HERW!N. “To tackle
food waste from the source, the EU will need to introduce a binding 50%
food waste reduction target from farm-to-fork for all Member States.
However, some food surplus will continue to occur in a sustainable food
system. Social employment can be a valuable additional solution to save
that food surplus. For policymakers, supporting inclusive jobs in the food surplus sector is an excellent opportunity.”