This blog is co-authored with Tori Oto, food waste policy consultant.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) provide an incredible two-phase opportunity for states to plan and implement greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction actions. According to Project Drawdown, reducing food loss and waste is one of the top solutions we can adopt right now to mitigate climate change, given that we waste nearly 40% of the food supply. With climate planning and funding through the CPRG process, states and local governments have an opportunity to shift the status quo away from sending food to landfills and incinerators and toward using existing resources to get more food onto our tables.
Phase One of the CPRG process issued grants to states, metropolitan areas, tribes, and territories to create climate action plans. The planning is a two-part process where recipients first created Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAPs), which were submitted to the EPA in Spring 2024, and now have until mid-2025 to submit their finalized Comprehensive Climate Action Plans (CCAP). Meanwhile, Phase Two of the CPRG process awarded funding to applicants to implement portions of their Climate Action Plans. Funding was awarded in July 2024 and these projects are set to commence by the end of the year.
During the PCAP drafting process, the Zero Food Waste Coalition (ZFWC), of which NRDC is a founding member, worked with coalition members to participate in their states’ climate action planning process and to uplift food loss and waste as a priority. Over 25 Phase One recipients ultimately included food loss and waste as a priority action item and identified concrete steps for their governments to take to address it. For example, Missouri’s PCAP includes food waste as an explicit category of their waste management priority and includes action items under consideration such as facilitating surplus food donations and initiating consumer education campaigns. Other Phase One applicants, like Colorado, focused on reducing emissions associated with solid waste broadly, but did not specifically mention food loss and waste. By incorporating strategies that explicitly address food waste, these plans have the potential to achieve even greater GHG emissions reductions, unlocking new opportunities for environmental and economic benefits.
In July 2024, EPA awarded $4.3 billion to 25 applicants for the implementation of components of their PCAPs. Of the 25 applicants awarded funding, three states received funding for projects with food loss and waste elements. These three states and their respective projects are:
- Minnesota: Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency received $200 million dollars for their Climate Smart Food Systems project, which is expected to reduce 10 million metric tons of climate warming emissions from 2025-2050, which goes to show the large climate impact from incorporating food and agriculture. Food loss and waste reduction is one piece of the broader project, which will also provide funding to transition to electric vehicles and equipment used to grow and transport food and to transition to climate-friendly refrigerants for food storage. Funding from the implementation grant will go toward the food loss and waste prevention and reduction measures in Minnesota’s PCAP. The PCAP identifies actions such as implementing consumer education campaigns, supporting compost end markets, and increasing residential access to source separated organics collection.
- Virginia: Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality received $100 million dollars, a portion of which will go towards launching food rescue programs to deliver surplus, wholesome food that may otherwise be wasted to people and to divert food waste to compost at state agencies, colleges, and universities.
- Oregon: Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality received $197 million dollars, a portion of which will implement food waste infrastructure components of the state’s PCAP. Oregon’s PCAP states that they will use CPRG funding to expand composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure capable of processing food waste both at the large-scale, by retrofitting existing facilities and building new facilities where needed, and at a smaller scale, by investing in community composting infrastructure, including in underserved communities. Funding in Oregon will also support the installation of methane controls at landfills, helping to curtail emissions of this potent greenhouse gas.
Several states received funding for projects with tangential connections to food loss and waste. For example, Colorado’s Energy Office will use a portion of their funding to reduce and monitor emissions from landfills and to build local infrastructure to reduce emissions associated with their waste sector, which, depending on how they distribute this funding, could include funding for food waste processing infrastructure. Landfills are the 3rd largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., and food in landfills is responsible for 58% of those emissions; while preventing the disposal of food in landfills is the best way to reduce emissions, it is also important to mitigate harm from existing landfill waste.
Regardless of where an applicant is in their climate planning process—whether they have yet to include food loss and waste in their CCAP or have already received funding for related project—there are still opportunities to advance food waste priorities. Steps to take include:
- Add or expand food loss and waste priorities in Comprehensive Climate Action Plans: The municipalities, tribes, territories, and 46 states that received CPRG Phase One funding must submit finalized Comprehensive Climate Action Plans by mid-2025. States can use the ZFWC CPRG toolkit to identify ways to engage in the CCAP process in their own state, and municipalities can consider joining NRDC’s Food Matters knowledge sharing network to learn more about how to incorporate food loss and waste into their action plans and access our tools for cities.
- Identify alternative funding opportunities to implement food loss and waste initiatives: There are myriad funding opportunities available to state and local governments to implement their food loss and waste priorities, even if they did not receive Phase Two implementation funding. For example, the EPA’s Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Grant Program and the USDA’s Composting and Food Waste Reduction Cooperative Agreements can provide funding for composting infrastructure at various scales. ReFED and NRDC have developed a federal funding database that applicants can use to find funding opportunities.
- Advance new food loss and waste policies through regulation and legislation: As the primary food system and waste regulators, state and local governments are prime actors to incentivize behavior change when it comes to tackling food waste reduction across the supply chain. Actors can identify policy opportunities that will work for their jurisdiction using existing resources such as ZFWC’s State Policy Toolkit and NRDC’s Municipal Programs and Policies Toolkit.
By continuing to highlight the significant GHG emission reduction potential from food loss and waste reduction solutions, states and local governments can realize higher benefits through the CPRG process. State and local governments must continue to prioritize food loss and waste in their climate action plans and establish clear pathways to fund related projects. Now is the time to seize this moment and lead the way towards a more resilient and less wasteful future.
