ALERT: This system is being upgraded on Tuesday December 12. It will not be available
for use for several hours that day while the upgrade is in progress. Deposits to DukeSpace
will be disabled on Monday December 11, so no new items are to be added to the repository
while the upgrade is in progress. Everything should be back to normal by the end of
day, December 12.
Estimating And Harnessing The Environmental Benefit Of Food Waste Reduction For The Food Banking System
Abstract
Recent research by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) estimated that 40%
of the food produced in the United States, or 66 billion lbs., is wasted every year.
As the largest source of organic waste in landfills, the environmental impact of food
waste recovery can be significant. Between 50%-85% of the food a food bank receives
is diverted from a landfill. Feeding America estimates an additional 10.5 billion
lbs. of food is needed to eliminate hunger in the United States. Given that food banking
contributes to food waste diversion, can carbon offsets can be sold to financially
support the growth of food banks?
This analysis uses the Raleigh branch of the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North
Carolina as a case study to calculate a single food bank's greenhouse gas emissions
and compare it to an alternate scenario where the food delivered by the food bank
ends up in a landfill. Calculations based methodologies from The Climate Registry’s
General Reporting Protocol, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s WARM
model and a self-developed geospatial network analysis model (using ArcGIS) provided
the basis of the analysis. The results show that the food waste diversion saves between
3,000 - 5,600 mTCO2e in emissions, which is 1.8 to 3.2 times the operational emissions
of the food bank. Every pound of food moved by the food bank saves 0.39lbs. CO2e.
The amount of greenhouse gas savings, if monetized, could partially subsidize additional
human resources, asset capacity expansions, or energy efficiency investments that
could lead to long term financial and environmental savings.
While a food bank can show it has a positive environmental benefit through reduction
of food waste, harnessing it financially will be difficult. Requirements for recognizing
and selling a carbon offset make it difficult for any single food bank to access the
carbon offset market. Active participation of umbrella organizations like Feeding
America, government and corporations would be needed to investigate this potential
further. Alternatively, additional market analysis can be done to identify new fundraising
targets and strategies for food banks by highlighting their environmental benefits.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8174Citation
Tok, Xinying (2013). Estimating And Harnessing The Environmental Benefit Of Food Waste Reduction For The
Food Banking System. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/8174.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info