In the context of the third anniversary of the adoption of the UN 2030 Agenda, on Friday 28 September, the European Economic and Social Committee organized a conference on “Implementing SDGs: Civil society in action” in which Food Waste and Food Prevention are involved.
The conference was set up to connect the representatives of the Civil Society and the European institutions in order to share knowledge, expertise, experience and points of view. The conference started with a very interesting presentation about the ongoing implementation of SDGs from Enrico Giovannini, President of ASVIS. He presented the problem of the current unsustainable economic growth and its implication for the environment and people. The ongoing situation is to create not only the waste of natural resources but also the concept of human waste. According to Giovannini, we should change the economic system of growth nevertheless to do that we should actively contribute to achieve the SDGs with the support of the Europe.
Then, the conference continued with a session related to food waste, circular economy and sustainable development and a second one on climate action.
During the first session Alexandra Nikolakopoulou, Head of Unit at DG Sante, showed the activity of EU Platform on FLW and the results in the effort to reduce food waste. She presented several data in order to show the improvement about the reduction of food waste in term of quantity, European and national legislation, public awareness and corporate social responsibility, but nevertheless also some critical points as the measurement and the amount of food waste at consumer level.
In the end, the conference ended with a renewed call to civil society to contribute to the achievement of SDGs: the European institutions should support all the civil society initiatives and take care more than now about the climate situation and the issue of hunger and food waste. “We need a holistic, systemic and political response to these issues”, claimed Karl Falkenberg former Commission Director-General for Environment and current Senior Advisor from European Political Strategy Centre.
