Preventing waste in Europe : progress and challenges, with a focus on food waste

Waste prevention is central to the circular economy and plays a critical role in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. It helps reduce resource extraction, manufacturing and transportation, and lowers carbon emissions. Because of this, waste prevention protects natural ecosystems and enhances the EU's strategic autonomy and materials supply security. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) prioritises waste prevention as the most effective strategy for reducing environmental impacts and improving resource efficiency. It mandates Member States to implement waste prevention programmes (WPPs). These programmes promote sustainable consumption, improve product design and reduce the use of harmful substances. A key objective is to decouple economic growth from waste generation. Mandated by the WFD, the European Environment Agency (EEA) evaluates and reports on EU waste prevention policies in a biennial report. This report assesses policy implementation and waste generation trends as well as progress towards decoupling (1) waste from economic growth and advancing a circular economy. Using an indicator framework, the report presents the latest data and highlights trends, challenges and best practices. Particular attention is given to food waste, providing an in-depth analysis of progress and challenges in this area. This focus is especially timely considering the proposed food waste reduction targets in the revised WFD