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The economic, environmental, and social impacts of food waste are significant and its reduction is urgent. Target 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals advocates for a 50% reduction of the per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030, and for a reduction in food losses along production and supply chains including post-harvest losses. The European Commission, besides committing to achieve the SDG 12.3 target, has identified food waste as one of the priority areas of the European Circular Economy Action Plan. To act on food waste reduction, it is essential for Member States (MSs) to know what are their current levels of food waste. It is equally relevant that this information is gathered using a common quantification approach. To understand the state of play in food waste quantification in the MSs, a literature review of existing studies quantifying food waste in the MSs was conducted by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in support to the activities of the subgroup ‘Food waste Measurement’ of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste. This review was carried out in light of the elements defined in the delegated act that has been adopted by the Commission on 3rd May 2019, establishing a common methodology and minimum quality requirements for the uniform measurement of level of food waste generated in MSs. Aspects analysed included: (i) the definition of food waste used; (ii) the scope and boundaries of the study; (iii) the accounting methodology, including the measurement method(s) used; (iv) the amount of food waste estimated and its final destination(s); (v) additional indicators (e.g. economic, environmental, social) reported; and, (vi) gaps and challenges reported in the studies. In total, 48 studies were analysed. The review highlighted that current data on food waste quantification at MS level is scarce. Although some MSs have been developing work in this area, others have not yet conducted any study quantifying food waste. In general, the studies were carried out using different food waste definitions and following different quantification approaches, which makes their comparison very limited., JRC.D.1-Bio-economy

Member States are now obliged to monitor the generation of food waste along the food supply chain and to take measures to limit it. To contribute to the harmonization of food waste quantification in the EU, the European Commission has published a delegated act establishing a common methodology and minimum quality requirements for the uniform measurement of food waste generated in Member States. A review of studies quantifying food waste at Member State level carried out by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) unveils big discrepancies in the state-of-play in food waste accounting across Member States. Only a few countries have quantified food waste along the entire food supply chain. Moreover, the studies reviewed were developed following different quantification approaches, including the adoption of different food waste definitions, which limit their comparability. Based on the review conducted, this report summarizes the main limitations and data gaps encountered that hinder comparability of the results, in light of what is required by the delegated act. Issues identified include the food waste definition used, the assessment of edible and inedible food waste, the geographical and temporal scope and system boundaries, the quantification of food waste drained as/with wastewater, the choice of the measurement method, the use of primary and/or secondary data, the adoption of sampling and upscaling procedures, and the assessment of the uncertainty of the results. Suggestions are provided to support Member States in addressing the limitations and data gaps encountered. The harmonization of food waste quantification across the Member States is essential to ensure the comparability of the results and to assess the performance of the EU towards target 12.3 defined under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production., JRC.D.1-Bio-economy

Food waste is considered a sustainability challenge, and its reduction is advocated by the Sustainable Development Goal 12.3. The development of food waste prevention actions is, hence, essential. To identify the most efficient and effective prevention actions, a systematic analysis is required. However, the evaluation of food waste prevention interventions is still at an early stage of development and appropriate methods to assess their effectiveness are missing. In this context, the European Commission carried out a pilot exercise of collection and evaluation of food waste prevention actions. This exercise was carried out jointly by the European Commission Joint Research Centre and the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) as part of the activities of the European Platform on Food Loss and Waste (FLW) (sub-group on 'Action and Implementation'). This report presents the results of this exercise that involved (i) the collection of food waste prevention actions through a survey distributed to the members of the EU Platform on FLW; (ii) the development of a systematic framework to evaluate food waste prevention actions with selected criteria and indicators, including a calculator for assessing impacts on the basis of life cycle assessment; and (iii) the assessment of the actions reported according to the framework developed. A total of 91 actions have been submitted by different actors (NGOs, local authorities, companies, etc.) covering a wide spectrum of action typologies: ‘Redistribution of food for human consumption’, ‘Food valorisation’, ‘Consumer behaviour change’, ‘Improvement of supply chain efficiency’, and ‘Food waste prevention governance’. Based on the assessment of the prevention actions reported, suggestions for data collection improvement and better action design are provided., JRC.D.1-Bio-economy

In 2013, the Environmental Footprint methodology has been established with a specific Recommendation (2013/179/EU), within the framework of the “Single Market for Green Products” communication (COM/2013/0196). The International Life Cycle Data system, developed since 2007, released in 2010 and continuously maintained by JRC, has been adopted in the EF framework. ILCD format and nomenclature were adopted as requirements for EF. Given the different needs and goals of the EF, in this release of the Reference Package (EF 3.0) some methods for the Life Cycle Impact Assessment have been changed compared to ILCD (and therefore the elementary flows have been adapted accordingly, and to some extent, the format has been expanded), some changes also occurred in comparison to the EF 2.0 release (may 2018). The the LCIA methods are developed within the database as ILCD-formatted xml files to allow electronic import into LCA software; The LCIA methods are implemented as separate data sets which contain all the descriptive metadata documentation and the characterisation factors assigned to different elementary flows (that are also xml files within the DB). This document provide a view on the changes occurred within the methods for the mid-point impact assessment (the EF is considering for now only impacts at the level of potential changes, not at the potential damage level, which was captured in ILCD scheme for the methods at the end-point level). The changes and adaptations occurred within the ILCD scheme, that led to the creation of the current EF set of methods and a new package, based on ILCD format, containing new files for LCIA methods, can be summarized as follows: • 3 methods are completely new, or updated according to the newest releases of the old methods adopted in ILCD/EF. 1 method has been deeply reviewed. 9 sub-methods (i.e. partial sets of CFs for specific group of substances, have been released for 3 impact categories). • The elementary flow list has been fixed and expanded according to the needs of the new methods • Within the new methods some flows have been spatially differentiated (in ILCD format the location attribute is resolved at the method level, not at the elementary flow level) • For several flows that were not characterized (both in newly added methods and in the pre-existing ones that were not modified), a CF has been adopted, where a direct proxy for a specific substance/compartment was available. • Specific exceptions, integrations or corrections have been implemented in different methods. All these aspects are detailed within the document. Furthermore, additional files have been released, containing an exhaustive view of all the changes occurred in the transition phase between the ILCD and the EF 3.0 see http://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/LCDN/developerEF.xhtml/ for details., JRC.D.1-Bio-economy

This data article presents the UK City LIFE1 data set for the city of Birmingham, UK. UK City LIFE1 is a new, comprehensive and holistic method for measuring the livable sustainability performance of UK cities. The Birmingham data set comprises 346 indicators structured simultaneously (1) within a four-tier, outcome-based framework in order to aid in their interpretation (e.g., promote healthy living and healthy long lives, minimize energy use, uncouple economic vitality from CO2 emissions) and (2) thematically in order to complement government and disciplinary siloes (e.g., health, energy, economy, climate change). Birmingham data for the indicators are presented within an Excel spreadsheet with their type, units, geographic area, year, source, link to secondary data files, data collection method, data availability and any relevant calculations and notes. This paper provides a detailed description of UK city LIFE1 in order to enable comparable data sets to be produced for other UK cities. The Birmingham data set is made publically available at http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3040/ to facilitate this and to enable further analyses. The UK City LIFE1 Birmingham data set has been used to understand what is known and what is not known about the livable sustainability performance of the city and to inform how Birmingham City Council can take action now to improve its understanding and its performance into the future (see “Improving city-scale measures of livable sustainability: A study of urban measurement and assessment through application to the city of Birmingham, UK” Leach et al. [2]).