Food loss and waste is a climate problem.
It is also a measurement problem.
When edible food is discarded, the emissions associated with growing, processing, packaging, transporting and refrigerating that food have already occurred. If the food then enters landfill, decomposition can generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Preventing food from becoming waste can therefore reduce emissions at more than one point in the system.
It can avoid waste-treatment emissions. It can reduce demand for replacement food.
It can help direct edible surplus to people rather than disposal facilities.
The climate logic is compelling.
The accounting is harder.
On 6 October, Verra announced the first issuance of carbon credits under its VM0046 Methodology for Reducing Food Loss and Waste, v1.0. The credits were issued to the Brightly – Reducing Food Loss and Waste project in the United States, which Verra says has avoided approximately 720,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions by rescuing surplus food and redirecting it to people before it reaches landfill.
The project is an important market milestone.
It is also a useful test of whether carbon finance can support food-rescue activity without overstating avoided emissions.
The key question is not whether food rescue is socially valuable.
It clearly is.
The key question is whether the carbon-credit calculation accurately represents what would have happened to the food without the project.
What VM0046 is designed to measure
Verra’s VM0046 methodology applies to activities that keep food within the human food system instead of allowing it to become food loss or waste.
It can apply across multiple stages of the value chain:
Farms
Transport and storage
Food-processing facilities
Retailers
Foodservice and hospitality
Households
The methodology quantifies downstream emissions reductions associated with diverting food from a food-loss-and-waste destination, such as landfill.
Potential interventions include:
Improved demand planning
Redistribution through food-rescue organisations
Food-bank donations
Discounting or reallocation of surplus food
Digital platforms that match surplus food with users
Better logistics and storage
Changes to procurement and inventory management
The central calculation compares a baseline scenario with a project scenario.
Net emission reductions=baseline disposal emissions−project activity emissions−leakage emissions
The equation is conceptually simple.
The assumptions inside it determine whether the resulting credit is credible.
The baseline is the core integrity test
Every avoided-emissions credit depends on a counterfactual.
What would have happened without the project?
In food-rescue projects, the baseline may assume that surplus food would have been sent to landfill, anaerobic digestion, composting, incineration, animal feed or another destination.
These options have very different greenhouse-gas implications.
Food sent to landfill may generate methane, depending on local landfill-gas capture and treatment. Food sent to anaerobic digestion may produce energy or biogas. Food used as animal feed may displace other feed inputs. Composting has different emissions and nutrient outcomes.
The project developer must therefore identify the likely pre-project waste destination and its treatment characteristics.
A baseline that assumes landfill when food would more likely have gone to composting or animal feed could overstate avoided emissions.
A baseline that ignores methane emissions from landfill could understate them.
The details matter.
A carbon credit is not awarded because food is redistributed.
It is awarded only if the project can demonstrate a quantified emissions difference between the credible baseline and the project activity.
Additionality matters too
Food rescue is already undertaken by charities, retailers, social enterprises and community groups around the world.
That creates an additionality challenge.
If an organisation would have rescued and redistributed food anyway, without carbon-credit revenue, should it receive carbon credits for the activity?
VM0046 addresses this through a project-based additionality test.
Project proponents must demonstrate regulatory surplus, identify barriers that would prevent the activity and show that the practice is not already common in the relevant area.
This is important.
Carbon finance should support incremental activity: expanded collection capacity, new cold storage, additional transport, better logistics, improved data systems or food-rescue operations that would not otherwise be viable.
It should not simply monetise routine activity that is already funded.
The distinction may be difficult to assess, but it is necessary for market integrity.
Food rescue creates project emissions
Redistributing surplus food is not emissions-free.
A project may require:
Refrigerated transport
Warehousing
Cold storage
Packaging
Sorting and handling
Data systems
Staff travel
Delivery to recipient organisations
These emissions must be included in the project scenario.
If a food-rescue programme uses long-distance refrigerated transport to redistribute relatively low-emissions food, its net climate benefit may be smaller than expected. If it replaces landfill disposal with a highly efficient logistics network, the benefit may be stronger.
The methodology should account for these operational emissions rather than assuming every diversion is automatically climate positive.
This does not weaken the case for food rescue.
It makes the claim more credible.
Leakage is possible in food systems
Leakage is often discussed in forestry and land-use carbon projects.
It can also occur in food systems.
For example:
Rescued food may later be discarded by the recipient organisation or household.
Redistribution may displace purchases that would otherwise have supported another producer.
Food that is not safe or suitable for human consumption may be incorrectly included.
Changes in waste flows may affect the emissions profile of local treatment systems.
These effects may be modest or difficult to quantify.
But a robust methodology needs to identify them and apply conservative assumptions where evidence is limited.
The goal is not perfect accounting.
The goal is to avoid systematically overstating the outcome.
The Brightly project is a significant test case
According to Verra, the Brightly project works with 29 independent food-rescue organisations in the United States, including Feeding America. Between March 2020 and December 2023, the participating organisations rescued 15.3 billion pounds of surplus food. SCS Global Services served as the validation and verification body.
The reported scale is substantial.
It shows how a food-rescue network can connect social outcomes and climate outcomes.
But this first issuance should be treated as the beginning of scrutiny, not the end of it.
Buyers and observers should examine:
The sources and categories of recovered food
The baseline waste destinations
Local landfill-gas capture assumptions
The treatment of transport and refrigeration emissions
Additionality evidence
The fate of redistributed food
The independent verification scope
The allocation of carbon-credit revenue
The social safeguards and benefits for participating organisations
The project’s value is not only that it generated credits.
It is that it provides a real-world case for testing the methodology.
Carbon finance should support prevention first
Food rescue is valuable.
But it should not become a substitute for preventing surplus food from being created.
The waste hierarchy remains relevant:
Prevent avoidable surplus.
Redistribute safe edible food for human consumption.
Use food for animal feed where appropriate.
Recover energy or nutrients where higher-value uses are not possible.
Avoid landfill wherever possible.
Carbon credits may help fund redistribution where other finance is unavailable.
But companies should not use credits to avoid improving procurement, forecasting, storage, packaging, inventory management or consumer communication.
The strongest food-waste strategy reduces losses at source and uses carbon finance only where it helps fund additional, measurable outcomes.
A new market category needs careful claims
VM0046 opens a potentially useful carbon-finance pathway.
Food-rescue organisations often face unstable funding, logistics costs and limited capacity. If credits can provide additional revenue for verified incremental activity, they may help scale both climate and social benefits.
But claims should be precise.
A company purchasing a food-loss-and-waste credit should not claim to have eliminated the emissions embedded in its own food waste unless the credit is directly linked to its operations and the accounting supports that connection.
More broadly, companies should not use food-waste credits as a replacement for source reduction.
The best use of the mechanism is as supplementary finance for verified outcomes—not as a licence to maintain inefficient food systems.
The opportunity is real. So is the accounting burden.
The first issuance under VM0046 is a significant development for carbon markets.
It brings a major methane-related and socially important problem into a methodology with defined requirements for baseline, project emissions, leakage and additionality.
That is valuable.
But it also raises the bar.
Food rescue should be celebrated for feeding people and reducing waste. Carbon credits should be awarded only when the avoided emissions are demonstrated with the same discipline expected from any other climate claim.
The rule is simple.
Keeping food out of landfill may reduce emissions.
Proving how much requires rigorous evidence.