Zürich at the forefront in the fight against food waste
The city of Zürich, through its disclosure to CDP-ICLEI Track, revealed its ambitious goals to reduce food waste and to switch to low-carbon food through various initiatives - from the reorganisation of the menus in the municipal canteen to initiatives to reduce food waste in nursing homes, as well as campaigns and gastronomic events.
The city directly contributes to reducing food waste by implementing the Sustainable Food Strategy Zürich. Their commitment is embodied in the binding targets set for 450 food caterers of the city administration to reduce food losses by 2030, to use 50 per cent sustainable products and to reduce the environmental impact of food by 30 per cent compared to the year 2020.
To achieve the goals of sustainable food, the city of Zürich intends to make changes in five fields of action:
1) Regional production and distribution
2) Purchasing and catering
3) Food waste and disposal
4) Education and information
5) Cooperation and monitoring
Regional production and distribution objectives are implemented through the support of urban and regional producers, and the creation of guidelines to contribute to socially and ecologically responsible purchasing in city-owned catering establishments. With regard to food waste reduction, the city of Zürich launched a monitoring project in 2016 to measure food losses. The municipal activities involved - both the hospital, the retirement and nursing homes - measured their food losses, jointly developed measures and successfully implemented many of them.
With regard to education and information, the city promotes learning opportunities in schools to improve eating habits and learn where food comes from; these opportunities are offered by third parties such as gemueseackerdemie-schweiz, limetreecamp and slowmobil. In 2022 the city has initiated the food campaign "Klima à la carte" involving more than 100 restaurants. During one month the participating restaurants offered climate-friendly menus, shared recipes and recommendations how to cook climate friendly food at home. In return the city offered consulting and training to the participating restaurants on climate friendly menus and food waste reduction. And it published a range of guidelines on sustainable nutrition Merkblätter und praktische Hilfsmittel.
Furthermore, Zürich believes that citizens should be directly involved in its initiatives, which is why it has created specific nutrition campaigns such as save food fight waste and events such as Food Zurich, Soil to Soul, Food Save Banquet and others.
Another way to increase citizen involvement is through neighbourhood panels, collaborating with neighbourhood centres and playfully incorporating the topic into existing events. Four of these events were organised in 2021, and eight in 2022.
In terms of cooperation and monitoring, the city cooperates with numerous partners, such as the federal government, scientific institutions and non-profit organisations.
The city is participating in the study Was Isst Zürich (What does Zürich eat?), organised by the Zürich Environmental and Health Protection Agency, which analysed food flows in the city of Zürich and assessed opportunities and measures for a local and sustainable food system. One result of this research was the creation of a free tool CO₂-Quick-Check that assesses the climate impact of a restaurant menu and offers specific suggestions for improvement. All the restaurants have to do is upload their menu into the tool to get the assessment and tips for improving their CO₂ balance.
The last partnership, but no less important in terms of monitoring, is with Kausal, a platform that analyses the city's climate gas emissions and energy consumption and helps implement its climate goals.
This well-structured strategy demonstrates the commitment of Zürich, a member of the global network ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, Race to Zero and Covenant of Mayors Europe in addressing food waste towards a more sustainable city.
CDP-ICLEI Track 2022: https://data.cdp.net/
Sustainable Food in Zürich: https://www.int.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:a2cc2699-ca4c-4625-b4e0-4da75f396d1f/sustainable_food_in_zurich.pdf
Save food fight waste: https://savefood.ch/it/home-it.html
GemüseAckerdemie: https://www.acker.co/gemueseackerdemie
Limetreecamp: https://www.limetreecamp.ch/
Slowmobil: https://www.slowmobil-stuttgart.de/
Food Zürich: https://www.foodzurich.com/de/
Soil to soil: https://sotoso.com/
Food Save Banquet: https://foodsave-bankette.ch/fr/banquet-foodsave-zurich/
Das Gesundheits- und Umweltdepartement: https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/gud/de/index/umwelt_energie/ernaehrung/das-macht-die-stadt-zuerich/regionale-produktion-und-verteilung/was-isst-zuerich.html
Kausal: https://kausal.tech/en/
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability: https://iclei.org/
Race to Resilience: https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/
Race to Zero: https://unfccc.int/climate-action/race-to-zero-campaign
Covenant of Mayors Europe: https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/region/european-union-and-western-europe/