Search

They say we are what we eat. But in today’s climate crisis, perhaps it’s more accurate to ask: Are we what we don’t eat? Are we the wilted lettuce tossed in the bin? The surplus crops tilled under? The forgotten leftovers growing mold in the fridge?

Often when we talk about food system emissions, our minds often leap to familiar culprits like belching livestock, fertilizer runoff, or deforestation in the Amazon. These are visible, headline-grabbing climate stories. Food waste, on the other hand, is a quieter crisis. In the United States, 40% of food goes uneaten. It disappears from our view long before we recognize the consequences. But addressing food waste is one of the fastest and most effective climate solutions we have at our disposal.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Globally, more than one-third of all food produced is lost or wasted. That means all the emissions embedded in its production, transportation, and storage are for naught. And while the upstream emissions are significant, a large portion of food system emissions occurs after food has been discarded, particularly when it ends up in landfills.

As waste rapidly accumulates in landfills, it is compacted and covered to control odors, pests, and leachate. These sealed, oxygen-free environments create ideal conditions for anaerobic digestion, a microbial process that breaks down organic material and produces methane (CH₄), a greenhouse gas more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

While some landfills have methane capture systems, they are often inefficient or incomplete. As a result, landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., and food waste is the single largest contributor. In fact, food makes up over a quarter of landfill content nationwide.

To put this in perspective, imagine the journey of a single apple. It might be harvested, transported, and eaten the way it’s intended to be. But more often than we realize, it may be left to rot in the orchard due to market surplus, bruised in transit, or rejected at retail for cosmetic blemishes. It could make it all the way to being purchased, placed in a fruit bowl, and ultimately forgotten until fruit flies signal it’s time to toss it out. Each of these moments is an opportunity for waste—or intervention. Multiply that one apple by billions, and the climate impact becomes enormous.

The Emergency Brake for Climate Change

Food waste is responsible for 8–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire aviation industry. Project Drawdown ranks food waste reduction as the single most effective climate solution available today across all sectors, not just within the food system.

This is largely due to the danger of methane. Methane has been deemed a “super pollutant” because it traps heat over 80 times more effectively than carbon dioxide within a 20-year period. Reducing methane emissions therefore offers one of the most immediate and impactful pathways to slow global temperature rise. Given the accelerating effects of climate change, from record-breaking heatwaves and extreme weather to declining crop yields, solutions that deliver impact quickly are critical. 

Fighting Hunger and Climate Change Together

The case for reducing food waste isn’t just environmental, it’s also profoundly social. In the United States, one in seven people experiences food insecurity. That’s more than 44 million people uncertain where their next meal will come from, even as millions of pounds of perfectly edible food are thrown away each day. 

Across the country, hundreds of food recovery organizations are working tirelessly to change that. These nonprofit organizations collect quality surplus food along the value chain and distribute it to communities in need. By keeping food on plates and out of landfills, they are actively preventing methane emissions from reaching the atmosphere, fighting food insecurity and climate change at the same time.

Carbon Markets as a Catalyst for Change

If the climate and social case for food waste reduction is so clear, why is it still such a widespread problem?

Part of the challenge is systemic. Food waste occurs across the entire value chain, making accountability and intervention complex. The infrastructure to redirect waste to compost, animal feed, or donations is inconsistent and often underdeveloped.

Another critical barrier is funding. ReFED estimates that $18 billion in annual investment is needed to scale food waste solutions nationwide. That capital would support the infrastructure, logistics, technology, policy, and education required to cut food waste in half by 2030. Nonprofit food recovery organizations are particularly underfunded, depending on diminishing federal grants and unreliable donations.

This is where Brightly plays a transformative role.

Brightly measures the emissions impact of food waste diversion and generates verified carbon credits aligned with Verra’s VM0046 methodology. Using our proprietary software and high-integrity data analysis, Brightly helps food recovery organizations access new, scalable revenue to expand their operations, rescue more food, and feed more people. 

To date, Brightly has analyzed over 5 billion pounds of rescued food, equivalent to more than 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions avoided. That’s the same as taking more than 225,000 cars off the road for a year or eliminating the energy use of over 120,000 homes.

A Win-Win Solution

We often associate climate action with hard choices, long timelines, and delayed returns. Food waste reduction is different. It offers immediate environmental, economic, and social benefits, a rare opportunity for immediate, permanent impact.

Because we are what we don’t eat. What we fail to recover, to redistribute, to revalue comes back around. It warms the planet. It harms communities. It deepens inequity.

What we save, what we share, what we protect, on the other hand, can help build a more just, resilient, and sustainable food future.

‍