Programme highlights

Food aid: Reducing emissions from food aid activities

Food security and agriculture are the largest source of emissions produced by the international humanitarian sector: according to an initial estimate developed by Climate Action Accelerator, the Food Security and Agriculture Cluster would represent 50% of total sector- wide GHG emissions, 2022 baseline.

Food is a cornerstone of humanitarian assistance, providing live-saving assistance to those in need. Given the scale of the malnutrition and hunger crisis, with more than 333 million people facing acute levels of food insecurity in 2023112, the quantity and quality of food assistance delivered to the most vulnerable populations across the world should by no means be hampered but rather be secured or reinforced by emissions reduction strategy. This section explores ways to decrease the GHG intensity of food items while respecting nutritional needs and seeking alternative options that are culturally acceptable.

To reduce the carbon impact of food, several lines of effort can be considered:

  • Focusing on specific items with a higher emissions impact (hotspots). In the humanitarian sector, these are often rice, oils, sugar, rice, beans and cereals.
  • Setting up dedicated projects with suppliers and producers with the goal of improving agricultural practices.
  • Prioritising low-carbon alternatives can play a major role in reducing an organisation’s carbon emissions, such as switching from rice to cereals.
  • Sourcing seasonal and locally produced food items, preventing deforestation risks and addressing food waste are important levers.
  • Encouraging local sourcing through humanitarian organisations’ own food security programmes.

A fifth of the world’s population depends on rice cultivation for their livelihood. In food assistance programmes, rice is also one of the top items distributed to vulnerable populations. However, rice cultivation contributes significantly to climate change, producing about the same amount of GHG emissions as Germany,114 primarily from rice straw rot in paddy fields releasing methane. Though there are many factors involved, studies and pilots show that emission reductions of 40%-60% per kg of rice are possible.115

For humanitarian organisations, rice is one source of emissions where there is potential to make significant reductions. For example, when Climate Action Accelerator helped the ICRC to establish their trajectory for halving emissions by 2030, we showed that reducing rice’s footprint by 40% by 2030 would reduce ICRC’s total footprint by 5%.

Globally, more than 70% of the carbon footprint of food comes from the production stage.116 Reducing emissions from food items yields interesting co-benefits. For example, it contributes to providing livelihoods to communities and increasing local food production, locally produced items are also well adapted to the cultural habits of the local population. Locally ‘sourced’ does not necessarily mean ‘locally produced’. Organisations that are looking to increase the sourcing of locally produced food should accompany farmers in the transition to better agricultural practices by establishing long-term agreements that involve a commitment to move towards less impactful practices. This could include a partnership with a third party to provide necessary technical support. Humanitarian organisations can help local farmers to implement better agricultural practices through their programmes.

Organisations looking to increase the sourcing of locally produced food should accompany farmers in the transition to better and less impactful agricultural practices by establishing long-term agreements, this could include partnering with a third party to provide necessary technical support. Humanitarian organisations can help local farmers to implement better agricultural practices through their programmes.

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Firstly, we need to change the organisation’s approach to procurement, the right balance needs to be found between traditional procurement criteria prioritising the lowest bid and the objective of reducing climate and environmental impact.

Since most emissions come from on-farm activities, the main hurdles are making supply chains transparent and influencing upstream suppliers. With many actors involved, tracking the activities of the hundreds of thousands of farmers in the supply chains is a complex task. Organisations should adopt structural approaches, working on the whole supply chain. They should only collaborate with suppliers capable of verifying where products come from and should source produce from farms or cooperatives who adhere to agricultural practices with a lower carbon and environmental impact, such as regenerative agriculture. Suppliers can either be selected from the current supplier base, if they are already involved in this kind of transformation, or new sourcing options can be identified via certifications, green initiatives, and programmes. Dedicated resources are therefore needed to work closely with suppliers.

The fact that only a few actors buy and distribute food, directly or via partners, makes reducing emissions from food procurement somewhat easier. These actors include the World Food Programme (WFP) and the ICRC, as well as USAID, which plays a predominant role. By working with key food suppliers, distributors, and wholesalers, they could, for example, explore and adopt sustainable rice sourcing options in Asia and in the US. As such, they could achieve a significant reduction in GHG emissions. They are further encouraged to align their procurement criteria, assess synergies, and explore the potential for joint procurement.

Priority actions include:

  • Develop individual or collective engagement with wholesalers and distributors, being clear on climate and environmental expectations. Identify suppliers who can provide less emissive alternatives and/or who have a credible decarbonisation plan in place.
  • Engage with suppliers to understand if and how they are working to reduce emissions and whether they can measure reductions.
  • Leverage existing platforms or initiatives focused on greener and more resilient sourcing to explore new options, such as the Sustainable Rice Landscapes Initiative (SRLI). Some platforms have established climate smart agricultural programmes
    based on regenerative agriculture and are mature enough to offer sourcing options that prioritise sustainable practices.
  • Explore existing certification and verification mechanisms to understand what elements they cover, if standards are credible and if and how carbon reductions are included. It is important to note that labels and verification schemes exist for some items (e.g. sugar113, palm oil and rice), but not for others. Certification and verification schemes provide a useful indicator, though their actual impact on carbon reduction is difficult to measure.
  • Take into consideration difficulties that buyers in humanitarian organisations face in tracing the production and value chains of food items. Due to the globalisation of supply chains and the numerous intermediaries involved, transparency within the food commodity market is relatively limited. Procurement teams/projects therefore need to be resourced accordingly.
  • When working with suppliers, including local ones, prioritise long-term relationships. Investment, time, and commitment from both parties are necessary to promote sustainable agriculture. Suppliers need assurance that their efforts to implement regenerative practices will be supported and rewarded by their buyers over the long term.
  • Consider more responsible sourcing options without compromising supply security. This becomes even more challenging when organisations are responding to life-saving food aid emergencies. Food procurement strategies therefore need to integrate climate and environmental criteria while also considering flexibility and resilience, especially as more and more frequent fluctuations in the quantity and quality of crops will directly affect food availability and pricing.

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Emissions from food items can be significantly reduced by switching from high-emitting food items to low-carbon options. This should be done respecting cultural habits and under the technical guidance of nutritionists. Decarbonisation measures should not lead to a decrease in quality, quantity and timeliness of life-saving assistance.

5 Steps:

  1. Identify food items with the largest impact on the carbon footprint.
  2. Identify potential low-carbon, sustainable alternatives.
  3. Diversify rice sourcing, and include less carbon-intensive alternatives, such as pulses, maize and wheat, ideally from regional and local sources.
  4. Increase sourcing of plant-based options, reducing animal-based products when possible (especially beef, lamb and goat).
  5. Streamline the procurement process, integrating greenhouse gas emissions data into the food procurement decision-making process.
    • In theory, switching to low(er)-carbon food options is easy. However, the cultural and traditional aspects of nutrition for people in need are priority considerations that need to be considered.
    • Reducing the carbon impact of food aid requires the involvement of different departments and specialists, such as nutritionists and local experts. While the norm for food ration composition118 allows a variety of food items to be included, a potential change in food items should be reviewed by nutritionists and experts to ensure there is no negative impact on nutritional values.

The FAO estimates that 1/3 of soils globally are degraded,122 and that, instead of absorbing carbon, they emit carbon into the atmosphere. Buyers of food items can contribute to the transformation of agricultural systems so that soils go from being a source of GHG emissions back to functioning as a carbon sink. Whilst different concepts with slightly different focus areas exist (e.g. regenerative agriculture, climate- smart agriculture or agroecology), it is important to keep the outcome in mind: regenerating soil health, increasing biodiversity, reducing pollution, improving water quality and increasing carbon storage in the soil. A one-size fits all approach will not work due to the complexity of ecosystems and local circumstances: it is key to adapt practices to the local environment at farm level and work in collaboration with suppliers and producers to improve practices.

The Swiss-based NGO, Earthworm Foundation, has been working for 25 years with businesses, farmers, civil society and other actors on solutions to produce food and other commodities while restoring ecosystems. They are currently working with partners to improve soil health and scale-up regenerative agriculture in France, the USA and India.123 The NGO recently partnered with Vivescia, a cooperative farming and food processing group, to develop a tailored programme to scale-up regenerative practices with 1,000 farmers by 2026.124 This programme aims at reducing GHG emissions by 20% by 2030125.

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Some humanitarian organisations implement food security and livelihoods activities, either in post-crisis situations, or to reduce the vulnerability of local populations to crises. These activities include farming and agricultural programmes to support local production.119 Programmes of this kind should have a climate and environmental component. Improving agricultural practices by, for example, increasing soil health and reducing the use of pesticides not only contributes to the local availability of low-carbon, sustainable food items, but also supports long-term food security and farmers’ resilience.

A few humanitarian organisations, such as CARE120 and Action Contre la Faim,121 already promote agroecology in their programmes to help communities combat food insecurity and climate change.

Climate Action Accelerator’s solutions resources:

“Factsheet: Food items “, https://climateactionaccelerator.org/solution-areas/food_items/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

“Factsheet: Shift to low-carbon food options”, https://climateactionaccelerator.org/solutions/shift_to_low_carbon_food_option/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

“Factsheet: Rice”, https://climateactionaccelerator.org/solutions/rice/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Other useful resources:

Ritchie, P. Rosado, and M. Roser, “Environmental impacts of Food Production”, Our World in Data, 2018, https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Sustainable Rice Platform, “Sustainable Rice Platform”, https://sustainablerice.org/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

World Business Council for Sustainable Development, “The Sustainable Rice Landscapes Initiative (SRLI)”, https://www.wbcsd.org/Programs/Food-and-Nature/Food-Land-Use/Scaling-Positive-Agriculture/Sustainable-Rice-Landscapes, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

World Resources Institute, “Creating a Sustainable Food Future”, 2019, https://research.wri.org/wrr-food, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Global Network of Lighthouse Farms, “Global Network of Lighthouse Farms”, 2020, https://www.lighthousefarmnetwork.com/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Action Contre la Faim, “Agro-Ă©cologie et changement climatique”, 2018, https://www.actioncontrelafaim.org/publication/agroecologie-changement-climatique/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “Fleet Forum Website”, https://www.fleetforum.org/, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “GreenMe”, 2023, https://www.fleetforum.org/green-me, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “ESAT”, https://www.fleetforum.org/esat, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “Managing the environmental impact of your fleet”, https://knowledge.fleetforum.org/knowledge-base/article/managing-environmental-impact-of-your-fleet, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “Start Guide for NGOS”, https://knowledge.fleetforum.org/knowledge-base/article/start-guide-for-ngos, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Fleet Forum, “The Environmental Performance of EVs vs. ICEVs”, https://knowledge.fleetforum.org/knowledge-base/article/the-environmental-performance-of-evs-vs-icevs, (Accessed 23 May 2024).

Pillar 4

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