Cause Campaign
Every human needs food to survive. So that’s why we eat…daily. Sadly, our food consumption has an enormous impact on the world’s climate. New research has found out that more than a third, 34% to be precise, of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions are being caused by food systems. According to University of Oxford a food system is a “complex web of activities involving the production, processing transport, and consumption. Issues concerning the food system include the governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, the degree to which we waste food, how food production affects the natural environment and the impact of food on individual and population health.”
Not only companies bear responsibility for the current events of climate change, but also every single person on this earth contributes to it with their consumption.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)
In 2015, 17 sustainable development goals were introduced by all United Nations Member States. As the SDGs are integrated, every action in one area will have a direct impact on the outcome of another. That’s why the world must be developed socially, economically and environmentally at the same time. The SDGs are a universal call to “end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030”.
Our campaign is based on goal 12 of the SDGs: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. This goal is acknowledging the destructive impact the global economy has on the planet. The last century has been marked by ecological and social progress which has been extremely harmful to our environment.
Find out more about Goal 12 here: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12
Why food system activities are harmful to our environment:
The consumption of food is one of the main producers of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Half of the word’s habitable (which means ice- and desert-free) land is used for agriculture.
More than 70 % of the global freshwater withdrawals are utilized in agriculture.
Livestock outweighs wild mammals by a factor of 15-to-1. Also, out of 28,000 species which are documented on the red list for extinction, agriculture and aquaculture are listed as a threat for 24,000 of them.
Most of the global ocean and freshwater pollution is caused by agriculture.
Why we chose this cause
In today’s times, economic, social and environmental sustainability becomes an increasingly urgent issue for many people, also in the business world. Human industry plays a big role in the climate change picture as it is relying on land, resources, fossil fuels and non-stop production and consumption.
Businesses being aware of the issue at hand and understanding their urgent need to participate is the first step to become a sustainable key player. Being a “green business”, which basically means operating a business without impacting the environment negatively, contributes not only to making the world a better place but also to an organization’s overall success. Many of today’s firms have already adopted the triple bottom line, which proposes to not only focus on profit, but to also measure their environmental and social impact. The focus therefore lies on “the three Ps”: people, planet and profit. Studies have shown that the most sustainably business also profit the most.
OUR GOAL:
We are working on a partnership between the supermarket chain LIDL and the food rescue movement Too Good to Go. Our goal is to build a healthy community where everyone has the opportunity to take action against food waste. The concept looks like this: Before closing time, you can pick up food at Lidl at a reduced price that would otherwise be thrown away. Through the app Too Good To Go, Lidl can offer their surplus food to self-pickers at a discounted price. Consumers order and pay directly via the app and then only need to collect their order from the Lidl shop in the specified time slot.
This cooperation helps to reduce the four per cent of food losses that occur in the retail sector. Food left overs occur mainly due to the difficulty of planning product quantities correctly. In every food product which is displayed on the retailer's shelf, enormous effort was put in and should therefore be valued by the consumers.