Understanding the challenge: Food availability and security
Global food security is a major challenge already today. The UN estimates that 750 million people are affected by severe food insecurity, and that one in three are malnourished1. All this means the world is not on track to meet the UN’s Second Sustainable Development Goal, which calls for zero hunger by 2030.
If this weren’t enough of a challenge, the UN is also calling for “responsible production and consumption” of food. Some might see these goals as conflicting – surely sustainable solutions would be more costly and thus less available?
However, approached correctly, these two tasks can be complementary. Only by producing food (and equipment and packaging that facilitate it) in a responsible and sustainable way, can the world meet the challenges of supplying sufficient nutrition.
1. UN/DESA (2019). World Population Prospects 2019.
2. This means creating cartons that are fully made of renewable or recycled materials, that are responsibly sourced, therefore helping protect and restore our planet's climate, resources and biodiversity; contributing towards carbon-neutral production and distribution; are convenient and safe, therefore helping to enable a resilient food system; are fully recyclable.