A game about
Food Loss and Waste?

A game about
Food Loss
and Waste?

HOW IT WORKS

HOW IT WORKS

“By bringing insights from state-of-the-art modeling into an app, we can allow players to understand the complexity of real-life policymaking in a simple but not simplistic way. This approach allows everyone to test a number of strategies, and learn that addressing both local and global challenges does not require waiting for a hypothetical or miracle solution, but instead requires the development of a well-designed policy agenda, with costs and benefits, understood and accepted by most stakeholders”
David Laborde
Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI.

Your Goal: Improve Sustainability by Reducing Food Loss and Waste.

The problem of food loss and waste can be described using the number of kilograms of food lost or wasted. But it also represents something economically, socially, and environmentally.

Food loss and waste make significant contributions to global warming and agrifood systems inefficiencies.

The global community knows that these are important issues and both have indicators linked to the SDG agenda. Tackling this challenge can deliver a triple win by feeding more people with healthier diets, generating income for agri-food systems workers, and conserving and protecting natural resources.

Food Loss.

Food loss results from decisions and actions made by producers, harvesters, pre-processors, transporters, and wholesale markets. Food is precious and minimizing food loss is critical, especially in times of need. The annual global food loss includes 28 million tons of wheat, which is more than the entire annual wheat production of Ukraine, the world's fifth largest wheat exporter.

Food waste.

Food waste results from decisions and actions made by retailers, restaurants, food service providers, and consumers.

Food Loss.

Food loss results from decisions and actions made by producers, harvesters, pre-processors, transporters, and wholesale markets. Food is precious and minimizing food loss is critical, especially in times of need. The annual global food loss includes 28 million tons of wheat, which is more than the entire annual wheat production of Ukraine, the world's fifth largest wheat exporter.

Food waste.

Food waste results from decisions and actions made by retailers, restaurants, food service providers, and consumers.
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The Three Dimensions of Sustainability.

For a long time, "development" meant economic growth. But when certain segments of society remained poor despite economic prosperity, the notion of "inclusive growth" emerged to address inequality. Then it became clear that even inclusive growth would be meaningless if it irreparably damaged the environment in the process.

As countries strive to balance their economic, social, and environmental priorities, they must understand unintended consequences of their policy choices and plan accordingly.

By seeking harmony between their priorities, countries can find the "sphere of sustainability" where it's possible to reduce poverty, end hunger, and tackle inequality, while sustaining the environment - leading them to sustainable development.
Food loss and waste can be measured using the number of kilograms of food lost or wasted. But it also represents something economically, socially, and environmentally and we use the following simplified metrics in this game. The economic dimension is measured by the cost of lost or wasted food. The social dimension is the number of meals that could be fed with lost or wasted food. The environmental dimension is measured by the tons of carbon dioxide equivalents emitted from lost or wasted food.

Reducing food loss and waste will contribute to better sustainability for these three indicators. But overall sustainability is a much larger problem. In this game, the overall performance in sustainability is measured by GDP, jobs, food security, poverty, emissions, and biodiversity.
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Sustainable Development Goals.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, conflict, and injustice. They are integrated into and balance the three dimensions of sustainability–economic, social, and environmental. The SDGs are at the center of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. The Agenda is a plan of action for people, the planet, and prosperity now and into the future.

In this challenge, your score will be based on six indicators, each of which is closely tied to the SDGs. In the game, we will look at your outcomes in 2030 to align with this SDG landmark. You can read more about all 17 goals here.
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Policies.

It’s estimated that one-third of food produced is either lost along the supply chain or is wasted at restaurants or in household kitchens.

Produce, dairy, meat, and fish go bad on their way to the market due to inadequate refrigerated transport and cold storage facilities. Since the carbon footprint accumulates as food moves across the supply chain, throwing away food is to waste the emissions created from growing, transporting, storing, processing, and distributing the food. Cutting food loss and waste means feeding more people with healthier diets, generating income for agri-food systems workers, all while conserving and protecting natural resources. Every food loss and waste reduction can help us reach the Paris Agreement target of keeping global warming to well below 2 degrees C.

Policies like investing in supply chain infrastructure, reforming food subsidies that unintentionally lead to more food losses and waste, and informing the public to reduce food waste are some of the most efficient ways to cut food loss and waste.

Policies can be divided into three groups: infrastructure, institution, and behavior. One way to think about their relationship is as hardware, software, and user. Infrastructure policies serve as the hardware. Institution policies, the software. Behavior policies represent the user that actually puts the hardware and software to use.

Institutional Policies.

Political institutions are the bodies in a government. They create, enforce, and apply policies to address issues. For example, trade regulation can speed up trade and reduce food loss. Others deal with externalities, which means a secondary or unintended consequence. For example, a carbon tax puts a price on emissions, which could lead to more responsible consumption and less food waste.

Infrastructure Policies.

Globally, 14 percent of food is lost due to inefficiencies in food supply chains, including poor road conditions and inadequate storage facilities. Improving the transportation of food from farm to market would alleviate food loss. Building physical and organizational structures requires private and public investment and resource allocation.

Behavior Policies.

People must adopt new practices and technologies for behavior policies to be viable solutions. On the producer side, improved packaging, farm-level practices, and enhanced processing and packaging throughout the supply chain can reduce food loss. On the consumer side, responsible consumption can greatly reduce food waste. Changing behavior requires funding, training, and incentives over a long period of time, making the government’s role critical.

Institutional Policies.

Political institutions are the bodies in a government. They create, enforce, and apply policies to address issues. For example, trade regulation can speed up trade and reduce food loss. Others deal with externalities, which means a secondary or unintended consequence. For example, a carbon tax puts a price on emissions, which could lead to more responsible consumption and less food waste.

Infrastructure Policies.

Globally, 14 percent of food is lost due to inefficiencies in food supply chains, including poor road conditions and inadequate storage facilities. Improving the transportation of food from farm to market would alleviate food loss. Building physical and organizational structures requires private and public investment and resource allocation.

Behavior Policies.

People must adopt new practices and technologies for behavior policies to be viable solutions. On the producer side, improved packaging, farm-level practices, and enhanced processing and packaging throughout the supply chain can reduce food loss. On the consumer side, responsible consumption can greatly reduce food waste. Changing behavior requires funding, training, and incentives over a long period of time, making the government’s role critical.
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About FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide. We believe that everyone can play a part in ending hunger.

About Green Brown Blue

The Lexicon is a US-based NGO that uses evidence-based storytelling, strategy, and mobilization to build movements that help people pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system.
 
Green Brown Blue is a food systems solutions activator produced by The Lexicon with support from Food at Google. Its activators assesses the current food landscape, engage with key influencers, identify trends, surveys innovative work, and creates greater visibility for ideas and practices with the potential to shift key food and agricultural paradigms.

Change the Game Team

Change the Game, Change the Future features an unprecedented collaboration between members of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and The Lexicon to create a platform that demonstrates the complexities of agri-food systems transformation. Meet the team behind it.

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This website was built by The Lexicon™, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization headquartered in Petaluma, CA.
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To the extent possible under law, Green Brown Blue, a Food Systems Solutions Activator is releasing all its content under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO) licence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Agrifood systems transformation is a complex issue. Why did you choose to present this concept using a game platform?

Transforming our agri-food systems so that they can feed 8.5 billion people sustainably by 2030 is a critical milestone to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Most countries often have clear objectives–such as ending hunger or making healthy diets available for everyone–but the complexities of these decisions are difficult to consider, and ministries often act in silos. This can lead to unintended consequences, including negative impacts on land, water, biodiversity, and equity. We believe that a game using data and storytelling tools can help players understand the complexities and consequences of their choices, and make them move to action.

What are the main ideas and lessons that the game addresses? What do you hope players take away from playing the game?

Transforming our agri-food systems so that they can feed 8.5 billion people sustainably by 2030 is a critical milestone to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Most countries often have clear objectives–such as ending hunger or making healthy diets available for everyone–but the complexities of these decisions are difficult to consider, and ministries often act in silos. This can lead to unintended consequences, including negative impacts on land, water, biodiversity, and equity. We believe that a game using data and storytelling tools can help players understand the complexities and consequences of their choices, and make them move to action.

Why are food loss and waste the focus of the first version of the game?

Food loss and food waste are major contributors to global warming and agri-food systems inefficiencies. Tackling them can deliver a triple win by feeding more people with healthier diets, generating income for agri-food systems workers, and conserving and protecting natural resources. So we began with food loss and waste to show how agri-food systems can be made more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Future versions of the game will address different challenges that agri-food systems face.

How did you collect data from over 190 countries for this game?

Most of the data are from the United Nations, with a lot of agri-food systems data coming from the Food and Agriculture Organization. There is also household survey data to capture certain elements, like poverty and hunger, at the country level, as well as some World Development Indicators from the World Bank. We wanted to bring all these rich data together into a single model.

Why is the world divided into 17 regions?

We grouped the nearly 200 countries into 17 regions to facilitate gameplay and provide different experiences. In the game, the player is in charge of a fictional representative country of each of these regions. Every region has its own unique set of strengths and challenges that will determine which decisions will have the greatest impacts and which will lead to unintended consequences. For example, a region may struggle with food insecurity and poverty but could have rich biodiversity and potential for agricultural production. Balancing these opportunities and challenges is a key part of the game.

Why are the dimensions of sustainability so important to play the game, and where did the concept come from?

It developed over decades, as countries realized economic growth alone wasn’t sufficient and that development had to be inclusive to address inequality and protect the planet for future generations. Eventually, this led to the notion of “sustainable development,” in which economic, social, and environmental priorities are balanced.

How did you decide what policy choices to offer to the player? Why did you choose these three policy domains and nine policy options?

The policy choices are focused on agri-food systems throughout the production, distribution, processing, and consumption phases. To make the most informed decisions, players can seek advice from government ministers and experts, but they quickly learn that making decisions for the benefit of one region may lead to adverse effects halfway across the globe. What players need is a well-balanced policy intervention, not a hypothetical miracle solution. Read more here.

How is my score calculated?

During the game, your choices impacted a number of economic, social, and environmental variables, like the number of people suffering from chronic hunger or the amount of land deforested or saved from deforestation. These variables are aggregated into six main indicators (GDP, jobs, food security, poverty, emissions, and biodiversity) and gathered into the three dimensions of sustainability. 

The scoring procedure follows two steps. First, we measure your performance on each of these indicators on a -10 to +10 scale, relative to each region. For example, a +10 on food security means that you’ve achieved the maximum performance that the region can within the game. It doesn’t mean that you’ve solved all food security problems, but that you’ve made the best possible choices based on the options given to you. This game is about actions related to tackling food loss and waste, but obviously just dealing with food loss and waste will not solve all the problems. 

The next step is about aggregating these performances. First, a simple average is taken across the two indicators belonging to each dimension of sustainability. Finally, each of these dimensions is weighted by the percentages indicated by your preferences to get a final score.

Why are the outcomes screens divided into food loss and waste, regional sustainability, and world sustainability?

There are many concepts that the game addresses and multiple outcomes screens help break these down, with each screen zooming out to a larger scale. The player is first shown how they performed on the challenge of reducing food loss and waste within their region. Next, the player is shown how their choices for addressing food loss and waste impacted the overall sustainability of their region. Finally, the world sustainability screen shows how the player’s choices have impacted sustainability globally. This score is based on the potential of what their region could do for the world, so even a small region can have a high score if they have done everything in their power for global sustainability.

What is the point in playing the game multiple times?

Playing the game multiple times within the same region can demonstrate how different decisions can lead to different outcomes for food loss and waste, as well as sustainability. The tradeoffs in scores reflect tradeoffs in real-life policymaking, which is an important concept for problem-solving and critical thinking. Playing the game in different regions illustrates how even the exact same choices can lead to different outcomes, depending on the conditions and resources specific to each region.

The production team brings together very different skillsets and backgrounds. Why did this group come together?

This project is a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Lexicon. FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Their goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 member states, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.

By joining forces, FAO and The Lexicon were able to combine powerful storytelling tools and advanced quantitative modeling to convey the wealth of knowledge and data to demonstrate how certain choices can solve challenges faced by agri-food systems.

Why does the game not address fisheries and aquaculture?

Although fisheries and aquaculture are vital to the nutrition and livelihoods of many people and the biodiversity of life below water, this game focuses on farming and ranching. Food loss and waste issues related to fisheries involve a particular set of challenges that go far beyond what could fit into this game’s narrative.