BETA


2016/2223(INI) Initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste, improving food safety

Progress: Procedure completed

RoleCommitteeRapporteurShadows
Lead ENVI BORZAN Biljana (icon: S&D S&D) DELAHAYE Angélique (icon: PPE PPE), DEMESMAEKER Mark (icon: ECR ECR), MÜLLER Ulrike (icon: ALDE ALDE), ŠKRLEC Davor (icon: Verts/ALE Verts/ALE), PEDICINI Piernicola (icon: EFDD EFDD), JALKH Jean-François (icon: ENF ENF)
Committee Opinion AGRI NICHOLSON James (icon: ECR ECR) Marijana PETIR (icon: PPE PPE)
Lead committee dossier:
Legal Basis:
RoP 54

Events

2017/09/26
   EC - Commission response to text adopted in plenary
Documents
2017/05/16
   EP - Results of vote in Parliament
2017/05/16
   EP - Decision by Parliament
Details

The European Parliament adopted by 623 votes to 33, with 20 abstentions, a resolution on the initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste and improving food safety.

Members recalled that the FAO estimates that each year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted. Food wastage has high social, economic and environmental costs , as well as ethical consequences.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy and active life.

In this regard, Parliament stressed the urgent need to reduce the amount of food waste, and to improve resource efficiency in the EU at every step of the food chain. It called on the Member States to take the measures required to achieve a Union food waste reduction target of 30 % by 2025 and 50 % by 2030 compared to the 2014 baseline.

Members called on the Commission to:

identify EU legislation that might hamper the effective combating of food waste and assess the potential impact of new legislative proposals on food waste; examine, by 31 December 2020, the possibility of setting up binding EU-wide food waste reduction targets to be met by 2025 and 2030 on the basis of measurements calculated in accordance with a common methodology; support a legally binding definition of food waste and to adopt, by 31 December 2017, a common methodology, including minimum quality requirements, for the uniform measurement of food waste levels; draw up a report by 31 December 2018 to assess the need for cross-cutting regulatory measures in the sustainable consumption and production sector; update the list of foods currently exempt from ‘best before’ labelling in order to prevent food waste; propose a change in the VAT Directive that would explicitly authorise tax exemptions on food donations.

Members suggested:

putting existing financial support for combating food waste on a permanent footing; engaging in awareness-raising and communication campaigns on how to prevent food waste; providing economic incentives to support the collection of unused food, which can either be redistributed to charities or re-used for another secondary purpose which prevents food waste; improving the understanding, especially by consumers , of ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates, and of the usability of foodstuffs after the ‘best before’ date; considering variable pricing linked to expiry dates , as a tool for reducing the quantity of edible food products which become waste (i.e. by introducing discounts in proportion to the time remaining before product expiry).

Parliament highlighted the initiatives contained in the Circular Economy Action Plan covering measures for establishing a financial support platform to attract investment and innovations aimed at reducing losses, as well as the guidelines addressed to the Member States for converting some food losses or agricultural by-products into energy.

It stressed that:

energy needs should be met by using waste and by-products that are not useful in any other process higher up the waste hierarchy; successfully combating food waste also requires strong recycling levels in the revised Waste Framework Directive and the integration of the cascading principle for biomass in EU energy policy; food waste reduction measures must not compromise food safety , environmental standards or animal protection standards, notably animal health and welfare.

Parliament also called on the Member States to:

take measures to reduce food losses along the whole supply chain, including in primary production, transportation and storage; adopt specific food waste prevention measures within their waste prevention programmes; encourage home composting and the separating out of bio-waste at source, and ensure that this waste is subject to bio-recycling; use the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to reduce food waste in primary production and the processing sector.

Lastly, the use of Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) should be promoted to facilitate food donations by financing the costs of collection, transport, storage and distribution.

Documents
2017/05/16
   EP - End of procedure in Parliament
2017/05/15
   EP - Debate in Parliament
2017/04/28
   EP - Committee report tabled for plenary
Details

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the own-initiative report by Biljana BORZAN (S&D, HR) on the initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste and improving food safety.

Members stressed the urgent need to reduce the amount of food waste, and to improve resource efficiency in the EU at every step of the food chain given that in highly industrialised countries food is wasted predominantly at the sales and consumption stages, while in developing countries food begins to be wasted at the manufacturing and processing stages.

Members called on the Commission to:

identify EU legislation that might hamper the effective combating of food waste and analyse how it might be adapted to meet the food waste prevention objective; evaluate the potential impact of new relevant legislative proposals on food waste; examine, by 31 December 2020, the possibility of setting up binding EU-wide food waste reduction targets to be met by 2025 and 2030 on the basis of measurements calculated in accordance with a common methodology; draw a clear distinction in its future policies between food wastage and food loss , which is unavoidable at primary production level owing to force majeure events such as storms; support a legally binding definition of food waste and to adopt, by 31 December 2017, a common methodology , including minimum quality requirements, for the uniform measurement of food waste levels. A common EU definition and methodology for measuring food ‘loss’, applicable to the entire supply chain, would facilitate Member States’ and stakeholders’ efforts in calculating and reducing food waste; update the list of foods currently exempt from ‘best before’ labelling in order to prevent food waste.

They called on the Commission and the Member States to:

put existing financial support for combating food waste on a permanent footing; engage in awareness-raising and communication campaigns on how to prevent food waste; use the following definition of ‘food waste’: ‘food intended for human consumption, either in edible or inedible status, removed from the production or supply chain to be discarded, including at primary production, processing, manufacturing, transportation, storage, retail and consumer levels, with the exception of primary production losses’; provide economic incentives to support the collection of unused food, which can either be redistributed to charities or re-used for another secondary purpose which prevents food waste, such as turning unused food into a valuable resource, by using it in the production of feed for livestock and domestic animals; consider variable pricing linked to expiry dates , as a tool for reducing the quantity of edible food products which become waste (i.e. by introducing discounts in proportion to the time remaining before product expiry).

Members highlighted the initiatives contained in the Circular Economy Action Plan covering measures for establishing a financial support platform to attract investment and innovations aimed at reducing losses, as well as the guidelines addressed to the Member States for converting some food losses or agricultural by-products into energy.

They stressed that:

energy needs should be met by using waste and by-products that are not useful in any other process higher up the waste hierarchy; successfully combating food waste also requires strong recycling levels in the revised Waste Framework Directive and the integration of the cascading principle for biomass in EU energy policy; food waste reduction measures must not compromise food safety, environmental standards or animal protection standards , notably animal health and welfare.

Members called on the Member States to:

take measures to reduce food losses along the whole supply chain, including in primary production, transportation and storage; take the measures required to achieve an EU food waste reduction target of 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2030 compared to the 2014 baseline; adopt specific food waste prevention measures within their waste prevention programmes and in particular to establish voluntary agreements and create economic and fiscal incentives (e.g. changing the VAT rules) for donating food and other means of limiting food waste; encourage home composting and the separating out of bio-waste at source, and ensure that this waste is subject to bio-recycling; use the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to reduce food waste in primary production and the processing sector.

Lastly, Members welcomed the creation of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste and called on it to support the development of a variety of consumer information channels as well as consumer information and foodstuff education programmes.

Documents
2017/04/11
   EP - Vote in committee
2017/03/27
   EP - Committee opinion
Documents
2017/02/08
   EP - Amendments tabled in committee
Documents
2016/12/13
   EP - Committee draft report
Documents
2016/09/15
   EP - Committee referral announced in Parliament
2016/07/13
   EP - NICHOLSON James (ECR) appointed as rapporteur in AGRI
2016/06/30
   EP - BORZAN Biljana (S&D) appointed as rapporteur in ENVI

Documents

Activities

Votes

A8-0175/2017 - Biljana Borzan - résolution #

2017/05/16 Outcome: +: 623, -: 33, 0: 20
DE FR IT ES PL RO GB BE PT SE AT HU CZ EL BG NL FI SK DK LT HR LV IE LU EE SI CY MT
Total
88
64
66
50
49
29
54
21
20
20
18
18
20
20
15
23
12
13
10
9
9
8
9
6
6
8
5
5
icon: PPE PPE
199

Finland PPE

2

Denmark PPE

For (1)

1
3

Luxembourg PPE

3

Estonia PPE

For (1)

1

Cyprus PPE

1

Malta PPE

2
icon: S&D S&D
172

Netherlands S&D

3

Lithuania S&D

1

Croatia S&D

2

Latvia S&D

1

Ireland S&D

For (1)

1

Luxembourg S&D

For (1)

1

Estonia S&D

For (1)

1

Slovenia S&D

For (1)

1

Cyprus S&D

2

Malta S&D

3
icon: ALDE ALDE
62

Romania ALDE

3

United Kingdom ALDE

1

Portugal ALDE

1

Austria ALDE

For (1)

1

Croatia ALDE

For (1)

1

Latvia ALDE

1

Ireland ALDE

For (1)

1

Luxembourg ALDE

For (1)

1

Estonia ALDE

3

Slovenia ALDE

Against (1)

1
icon: ECR ECR
64

Italy ECR

Against (1)

2

Romania ECR

For (1)

1

Czechia ECR

2

Greece ECR

For (1)

1

Bulgaria ECR

2

Netherlands ECR

2
2

Slovakia ECR

Against (1)

3

Denmark ECR

2

Lithuania ECR

1

Croatia ECR

For (1)

1

Latvia ECR

For (1)

1
icon: Verts/ALE Verts/ALE
50

Italy Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Belgium Verts/ALE

2

Austria Verts/ALE

3

Hungary Verts/ALE

2

Netherlands Verts/ALE

2

Finland Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Lithuania Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Croatia Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Latvia Verts/ALE

1

Luxembourg Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Estonia Verts/ALE

For (1)

1

Slovenia Verts/ALE

For (1)

1
icon: GUE/NGL GUE/NGL
46

United Kingdom GUE/NGL

1

Sweden GUE/NGL

For (1)

1

Czechia GUE/NGL

2

Netherlands GUE/NGL

For (1)

1

Finland GUE/NGL

For (1)

1

Denmark GUE/NGL

For (1)

1

Ireland GUE/NGL

4

Cyprus GUE/NGL

2
icon: ENF ENF
35

Poland ENF

2

United Kingdom ENF

Against (1)

1

Belgium ENF

For (1)

1

Netherlands ENF

3
icon: NI NI
15

Germany NI

For (1)

1

Poland NI

Against (1)

1

United Kingdom NI

For (1)

Against (2)

3

Hungary NI

2
icon: EFDD EFDD
32

Germany EFDD

Against (1)

1

Poland EFDD

1

Sweden EFDD

2

Czechia EFDD

Against (1)

1

Lithuania EFDD

For (1)

1
AmendmentsDossier
510 2016/2223(INI)
2017/02/08 ENVI 338 amendments...
source: 599.592
2017/02/09 AGRI 172 amendments...
source: 599.622

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)

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  • date: 2017-09-26T00:00:00 docs: url: /oeil/spdoc.do?i=29530&j=0&l=en title: SP(2017)511 type: Commission response to text adopted in plenary
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  • date: 2016-09-15T00:00:00 type: Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading body: EP
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  • date: 2017-04-28T00:00:00 type: Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A8-2017-0175&language=EN title: A8-0175/2017 summary: The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the own-initiative report by Biljana BORZAN (S&D, HR) on the initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste and improving food safety. Members stressed the urgent need to reduce the amount of food waste, and to improve resource efficiency in the EU at every step of the food chain given that in highly industrialised countries food is wasted predominantly at the sales and consumption stages, while in developing countries food begins to be wasted at the manufacturing and processing stages. Members called on the Commission to: identify EU legislation that might hamper the effective combating of food waste and analyse how it might be adapted to meet the food waste prevention objective; evaluate the potential impact of new relevant legislative proposals on food waste; examine, by 31 December 2020, the possibility of setting up binding EU-wide food waste reduction targets to be met by 2025 and 2030 on the basis of measurements calculated in accordance with a common methodology; draw a clear distinction in its future policies between food wastage and food loss , which is unavoidable at primary production level owing to force majeure events such as storms; support a legally binding definition of food waste and to adopt, by 31 December 2017, a common methodology , including minimum quality requirements, for the uniform measurement of food waste levels. A common EU definition and methodology for measuring food ‘loss’, applicable to the entire supply chain, would facilitate Member States’ and stakeholders’ efforts in calculating and reducing food waste; update the list of foods currently exempt from ‘best before’ labelling in order to prevent food waste. They called on the Commission and the Member States to: put existing financial support for combating food waste on a permanent footing; engage in awareness-raising and communication campaigns on how to prevent food waste; use the following definition of ‘food waste’: ‘food intended for human consumption, either in edible or inedible status, removed from the production or supply chain to be discarded, including at primary production, processing, manufacturing, transportation, storage, retail and consumer levels, with the exception of primary production losses’; provide economic incentives to support the collection of unused food, which can either be redistributed to charities or re-used for another secondary purpose which prevents food waste, such as turning unused food into a valuable resource, by using it in the production of feed for livestock and domestic animals; consider variable pricing linked to expiry dates , as a tool for reducing the quantity of edible food products which become waste (i.e. by introducing discounts in proportion to the time remaining before product expiry). Members highlighted the initiatives contained in the Circular Economy Action Plan covering measures for establishing a financial support platform to attract investment and innovations aimed at reducing losses, as well as the guidelines addressed to the Member States for converting some food losses or agricultural by-products into energy. They stressed that: energy needs should be met by using waste and by-products that are not useful in any other process higher up the waste hierarchy; successfully combating food waste also requires strong recycling levels in the revised Waste Framework Directive and the integration of the cascading principle for biomass in EU energy policy; food waste reduction measures must not compromise food safety, environmental standards or animal protection standards , notably animal health and welfare. Members called on the Member States to: take measures to reduce food losses along the whole supply chain, including in primary production, transportation and storage; take the measures required to achieve an EU food waste reduction target of 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2030 compared to the 2014 baseline; adopt specific food waste prevention measures within their waste prevention programmes and in particular to establish voluntary agreements and create economic and fiscal incentives (e.g. changing the VAT rules) for donating food and other means of limiting food waste; encourage home composting and the separating out of bio-waste at source, and ensure that this waste is subject to bio-recycling; use the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to reduce food waste in primary production and the processing sector. Lastly, Members welcomed the creation of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste and called on it to support the development of a variety of consumer information channels as well as consumer information and foodstuff education programmes.
  • date: 2017-05-15T00:00:00 type: Debate in Parliament body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?secondRef=TOC&language=EN&reference=20170515&type=CRE title: Debate in Parliament
  • date: 2017-05-16T00:00:00 type: Results of vote in Parliament body: EP docs: url: https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/sda.do?id=29530&l=en title: Results of vote in Parliament
  • date: 2017-05-16T00:00:00 type: Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading body: EP docs: url: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P8-TA-2017-0207 title: T8-0207/2017 summary: The European Parliament adopted by 623 votes to 33, with 20 abstentions, a resolution on the initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste and improving food safety. Members recalled that the FAO estimates that each year approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted. Food wastage has high social, economic and environmental costs , as well as ethical consequences. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy and active life. In this regard, Parliament stressed the urgent need to reduce the amount of food waste, and to improve resource efficiency in the EU at every step of the food chain. It called on the Member States to take the measures required to achieve a Union food waste reduction target of 30 % by 2025 and 50 % by 2030 compared to the 2014 baseline. Members called on the Commission to: identify EU legislation that might hamper the effective combating of food waste and assess the potential impact of new legislative proposals on food waste; examine, by 31 December 2020, the possibility of setting up binding EU-wide food waste reduction targets to be met by 2025 and 2030 on the basis of measurements calculated in accordance with a common methodology; support a legally binding definition of food waste and to adopt, by 31 December 2017, a common methodology, including minimum quality requirements, for the uniform measurement of food waste levels; draw up a report by 31 December 2018 to assess the need for cross-cutting regulatory measures in the sustainable consumption and production sector; update the list of foods currently exempt from ‘best before’ labelling in order to prevent food waste; propose a change in the VAT Directive that would explicitly authorise tax exemptions on food donations. Members suggested: putting existing financial support for combating food waste on a permanent footing; engaging in awareness-raising and communication campaigns on how to prevent food waste; providing economic incentives to support the collection of unused food, which can either be redistributed to charities or re-used for another secondary purpose which prevents food waste; improving the understanding, especially by consumers , of ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates, and of the usability of foodstuffs after the ‘best before’ date; considering variable pricing linked to expiry dates , as a tool for reducing the quantity of edible food products which become waste (i.e. by introducing discounts in proportion to the time remaining before product expiry). Parliament highlighted the initiatives contained in the Circular Economy Action Plan covering measures for establishing a financial support platform to attract investment and innovations aimed at reducing losses, as well as the guidelines addressed to the Member States for converting some food losses or agricultural by-products into energy. It stressed that: energy needs should be met by using waste and by-products that are not useful in any other process higher up the waste hierarchy; successfully combating food waste also requires strong recycling levels in the revised Waste Framework Directive and the integration of the cascading principle for biomass in EU energy policy; food waste reduction measures must not compromise food safety , environmental standards or animal protection standards, notably animal health and welfare. Parliament also called on the Member States to: take measures to reduce food losses along the whole supply chain, including in primary production, transportation and storage; adopt specific food waste prevention measures within their waste prevention programmes; encourage home composting and the separating out of bio-waste at source, and ensure that this waste is subject to bio-recycling; use the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to reduce food waste in primary production and the processing sector. Lastly, the use of Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) should be promoted to facilitate food donations by financing the costs of collection, transport, storage and distribution.
  • date: 2017-05-16T00:00:00 type: End of procedure in Parliament body: EP
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  • body: EC dg: url: http://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/health-and-food-safety_en title: Health and Food Safety commissioner: ANDRIUKAITIS Vytenis Povilas
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  • The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the own-initiative report by Biljana BORZAN (S&D, HR) on the initiative on resource efficiency: reducing food waste and improving food safety.

    Members stressed the urgent need to reduce the amount of food waste, and to improve resource efficiency in the EU at every step of the food chain given that in highly industrialised countries food is wasted predominantly at the sales and consumption stages, while in developing countries food begins to be wasted at the manufacturing and processing stages.

    Members called on the Commission to:

    • identify EU legislation that might hamper the effective combating of food waste and analyse how it might be adapted to meet the food waste prevention objective;
    • evaluate the potential impact of new relevant legislative proposals on food waste;
    • examine, by 31 December 2020, the possibility of setting up binding EU-wide food waste reduction targets to be met by 2025 and 2030 on the basis of measurements calculated in accordance with a common methodology;
    • draw a clear distinction in its future policies between food wastage and food loss, which is unavoidable at primary production level owing to force majeure events such as storms;
    • support a legally binding definition of food waste and to adopt, by 31 December 2017, a common methodology, including minimum quality requirements, for the uniform measurement of food waste levels. A common EU definition and methodology for measuring food ‘loss’, applicable to the entire supply chain, would facilitate Member States’ and stakeholders’ efforts in calculating and reducing food waste;
    • update the list of foods currently exempt from ‘best before’ labelling in order to prevent food waste.

    They called on the Commission and the Member States to:

    • put existing financial support for combating food waste on a permanent footing;
    • engage in awareness-raising and communication campaigns on how to prevent food waste;
    • use the following definition of ‘food waste’: ‘food intended for human consumption, either in edible or inedible status, removed from the production or supply chain to be discarded, including at primary production, processing, manufacturing, transportation, storage, retail and consumer levels, with the exception of primary production losses’;
    • provide economic incentives to support the collection of unused food, which can either be redistributed to charities or re-used for another secondary purpose which prevents food waste, such as turning unused food into a valuable resource, by using it in the production of feed for livestock and domestic animals;
    • consider variable pricing linked to expiry dates, as a tool for reducing the quantity of edible food products which become waste (i.e. by introducing discounts in proportion to the time remaining before product expiry).

    Members highlighted the initiatives contained in the Circular Economy Action Plan covering measures for establishing a financial support platform to attract investment and innovations aimed at reducing losses, as well as the guidelines addressed to the Member States for converting some food losses or agricultural by-products into energy.

    They stressed that:

    • energy needs should be met by using waste and by-products that are not useful in any other process higher up the waste hierarchy;
    • successfully combating food waste also requires strong recycling levels in the revised Waste Framework Directive and the integration of the cascading principle for biomass in EU energy policy;
    • food waste reduction measures must not compromise food safety, environmental standards or animal protection standards, notably animal health and welfare.

    Members called on the Member States to:

    • take measures to reduce food losses along the whole supply chain, including in primary production, transportation and storage;
    • take the measures required to achieve an EU food waste reduction target of 30% by 2025 and 50% by 2030 compared to the 2014 baseline;
    • adopt specific food waste prevention measures within their waste prevention programmes and in particular to establish voluntary agreements and create economic and fiscal incentives (e.g. changing the VAT rules) for donating food and other means of limiting food waste;
    • encourage home composting and the separating out of bio-waste at source, and ensure that this waste is subject to bio-recycling;
    • use the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to reduce food waste in primary production and the processing sector.

    Lastly, Members welcomed the creation of the EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste and called on it to support the development of a variety of consumer information channels as well as consumer information and foodstuff education programmes.

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    • body: EP responsible: False committee: AGRI date: 2016-07-13T00:00:00 committee_full: Agriculture and Rural Development rapporteur: group: ECR name: GOSIEWSKA Beata
    • body: EP shadows: group: EPP name: DELAHAYE Angélique group: ALDE name: MÜLLER Ulrike group: GUE/NGL name: KYLLÖNEN Merja group: Verts/ALE name: ŠKRLEC Davor group: ENF name: JALKH Jean-François responsible: True committee: ENVI date: 2016-06-30T00:00:00 committee_full: Environment, Public Health and Food Safety rapporteur: group: S&D name: BORZAN Biljana
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