Using public policy to move beyond voluntary measures and accelerate global food waste action

Exposing industrial salmon farming’s biggest financial backers.

Want to explore further? Download the dataset. We encourage journalists, campaigners, and activists to use this data to expose the financial backing of industrial salmon farming. Compiled by the Dutch non-profit Profundo, this data is made public to hold these financial backers accountable.

This report reveals how the EU’s current agri-trade policy is undermining global and EU sustainability goals in five key areas: the climate crisis, public health, food security & EU’s farmers livelihoods, global equity and animal welfare.

This report shows how the biomethane rush is driving the intensification of livestock production in Europe.

This is the English summary of the Dutch report: ‘A Democratic Supermarket in Moerwijk.’ The research explores the understanding of healthy and fair food according to the residents of a deprived district in The Hague.

This report examines the scale of food poverty in The Hague through interviews to identify where the structural problems lie and, most importantly, to explore potential solutions.

Dit onderzoek maakt deel uit van een project dat wordt gefinancierd door Healthy Food Healthy Planet, waarbij Foodrise samenwerkt met zes Europese organisaties in de Food Voices Coalition. Het doel is stemmen te mobiliseren om de toegang tot en de keuze voor gezond, duurzaam en rechtvaardig voedsel voor iedereen mogelijk te maken.

‘Klimaatimpact van het Grote Geld’ werpt een scherp licht op de rol van Nederlandse banken, zoals ING, ABN Amro en Rabobank, in het financieren van deze schadelijke praktijken. Deze banken hebben aanzienlijke sommen geld gestoken de industriële veehouderij.

The report shows how the Norwegian salmon industry’s voracious appetite for wild fish is driving loss of livelihoods and malnutrition in Africa. Farming carnivorous fish in Europe harms fishing communities in West Africa by depriving them of a resource fundamental to their nutrition and their livelihoods. Salmon are carnivorous, and farmed salmon depend on the nutrients provided through fish oil in particular, gained through grinding up smaller, wild fish. We have evidence that in feeding these smaller fish (sardines, sardinella, ethmalosa, etc.) to Scottish farmed salmon, major micro-nutrient losses occur.

The report finds that the high EU biomethane target is unrealistic and unsustainable: as European reform of gas markets is underway, our analysis debunks the assumptions behind the high EU biomethane target and calls for a much lower target that is fit for food and the climate.

Are you curious to read about what’ve done in 2022? Find out in our annual report!

De zes grootste supermarkten in Nederland hebben samen bijna 90% van het marktaandeel voor levensmiddelen in handen en voor veel mensen is naar de supermarkt gaan de enige optie om voedsel te kopen. Met deze scorecard wil Foodrise de top 6 Nederlandse supermarkten beoordelen op hun transparantie, ambities en acties: nemen zij de verantwoordelijkheid om de klimaatcrisis aan te pakken en minder vlees en zuivel te verkopen? Bekijk hoe goed jouw supermarkt scoort.

We urge the European Commission to set a legally binding target of a 50%, farm-to-fork reduction in food waste by 2030 and recommend that policymakers, organisations, and individuals join us in calling for these targets to be adopted.

We contributed to Changing Markets report on methane. Climate scientists have confirmed that a focus on methane emissions – in addition to measures designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions – will be crucial in determining whether global heating can be kept below 1.5°C.  Although the livestock sector is by far the largest contributor of human-induced methane emissions, the report reveals that both the biggest meat and dairy-producing countries – with some of the highest methane emissions – and the largest meat and dairy corporations are oblivious to the problem.

Foodrise’s annual report 2019-2020 covers Foodrise’s work in an unprecedent year, the pandemic brought to the fore many vulnerabilities of the food system, including reliance on global supply chains, the concentration of the groceries market, persistent food insecurity and health inequalities due to nutrition. This created a public space for many of our issues, and our advocacy, media and programmatic work to make food and justice central to the food economy became prominent this year.

UK supermarkets control over 90% of the UK groceries market share and for many people, going to the supermarket is the only option for buying food. Supermarkets therefore have a responsibilty to ensure the food they sell isn’t hurting the planet, including meat and dairy. With this scorecard, Foodrise set out to assess the top 10 UK supermarkets on their work to address the climate crisis by reducing the environmental impact of the meat and dairy they sell. See how well your supermarket scored.

The UK prides itself on being a world leader on climate action, and in particular deforestation. New legislative proposals from the UK government plan to introduce a due diligence obligation on companies trading in forest risk commodities – but exempts the financial sector which finances this trade. This report analyses sample investments held by the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund (PCPF) and reveals that Members of Parliament hold pensions investments in a fund holding US$67m in stock from companies among the top 35 largest global meat and dairy companies. The fund includes shares of JBS, one of the biggest meat producers in the world whose business practices have been repeatedly linked to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado region. These investments demonstrate why regulation is needed: MPs who strongly support an end to U.K. complicity in global deforestation will go on the record while, unknowingly, paying their own money into a fund that backs some of the worst offenders in forest destruction. Domestic legislation on deforestation which fails to address one of the most integral parts of the supply chain, finance, leaves gaping loopholes. Incorporating a due diligence obligation on finance sector organisations would close many of these gaps.

As countries and companies commit to net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) targets of varying ambition, anaerobic digestion (AD) has been framed as an environmental silver bullet, a form of renewable energy to rival wind and solar in its desirability and environmental credentials. AD is the process of taking organic materials, known as ‘feedstocks’, both purpose-grown, like maize and other crops, and waste streams, like food waste and manure, and breaking them down using micro-organisms in the absence of air. To date, the AD industry’s claims have largely gone unchallenged. However, by comparing the AD industry’s ideal scenario – one that maximises growth and draws the greatest subsidies – with a scenario in which policy decisions maximise proven climate change mitigation policies, this report shows that the benefits of AD have been overstated. Worse, the industry’s ambitions may be crowding out better environmental alternatives. This report uses the results of a life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted in collaboration with researchers at Bangor University to shed some much-needed light on the limitations of AD, and show what role there is (and is not) for AD in a sustainable future.

See also: Executive Summary, Appendices and Life Cycle Assessment study

Meat and dairy are a climate issue. But from the scale of investments made by the biggest global financial institutions, all with high-level and public commitments to sustainability, you wouldn’t know it. Between 2015 and 2020, global meat and dairy companies received over $478 billion in backing by over 2,500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds headquartered around the globe. In this report, Foodrise exposes the sheer scale of the global financial fodder behind meat and dairy corporations and reveals how high street banks, global investors and pension funds are bankrolling destructive livestock corporations.