The commercial and industrial sector in Australia sends 1.5 million tonnes of food waste to landfill each year (DEWHA 2009), but recovers almost 90% of waste generated, primarily as animal feed or compost (Verghese et al 2013).
RMIT Centre for Design and Society (CfD+S) and Plenty Food Group (PFG), a food manufacturing industry network for companies (retail, food service and hospitality industries) in Melbourne's north have developed the Dynamic Industry Resource Efficiency Calculation Tool (DIRECT). This tool measures resource efficiency of local food producers.
DIRECT was co-designed and tested with 20 companies. It focuses primarily on tracking material and energy inputs/ outputs, waste streams, and associated business costs.
The development of the tool, achieved over two years, included waste audit data collection to quantify the amount and causality of waste produced by a sample of PFG members, implementation assistance for waste reduction strategies, and a review of the progress of the PFG member's capacity to reduce food waste.
So now, by going through the DIRECT process, manufacturers can understand:
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the true cost of waste
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how to conduct resource efficiency assessments
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how to identify and calculate resource efficiency
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the business value of improving resource efficiency
The tool consists of a calculation module on Microsoft Excel, which is hosted on a web presence with associated resources and links. It will be launched on 26 June in Melbourne by the Plenty Food Group and Sustainability Victoria.
