Late last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRGs), a two-phase program that provides $250 million for noncompetitive planning grants to develop Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAP) and Comprehensive Climate Action Plans (CCAP) and $4.6 billion in competitive implementation grant funding to states, local governments, tribes, and territories to implement ambitious plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollution. In response, the Zero Food Waste Coalition (ZFWC) spent months encouraging and assisting organizations in asking their local agencies to prioritize initiatives designed to combat food loss and waste in their requests for funding and climate action planning.

Last month, the EPA announced that it has awarded $4.3 billion to implement 25 projects across 30 states aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across a multitude of sectors. The ZFWC is thrilled to see that three food waste projects were awarded implementation funding: The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

Their food waste-related project goals are as follows:

• Minnesota Climate-Smart Food Systems Project: Awarded $199,999,999
  • Project goals include accelerating the transition to climate-friendly refrigerants for food storage and the expansion of food waste diversion programs for both recovery (i.e. for human consumption) and recycling (i.e. for animal feed)
• Oregon’s Climate Equity and Resilience Through Action Grant: Awarded $197,181,796
  • Project goals include investing in landfill methane controls at landfill sites and in composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure.
• The Priority Methane Reduction Projects in Virginia: Awarded $99,999,999
  • Project goals include the implementation of a statewide program to capture and convert methane emissions from landfills for beneficial uses and launching 10-15 competitive grant-funded programs at agencies, colleges, and universities to rescue surplus, surplus food for human consumption and to divert wasted food to composting.

Implementation awards to Tribes and territories will be announced later this summer. All states that received funding to develop a PCAP, regardless of whether they received implementation funding, will now begin work on their CCAP. Due in or around June 2025, the CCAP will reflect states’ expanded short- and long-terms plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In September 2024, the EPA will hold a CRPG planning grant workshop in which PCAP recipients can develop and workshop their CCAPs.

Although the CCAP should follow the PCAP roadmap, there remain opportunities to advocate for the inclusion of food waste measures even in jurisdictions that did not expressly include food waste in their PCAP. Food loss and waste is responsible for 6% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 60% of all landfill methane emissions, making landfills the country’s third largest source of methane. The CCAP is supposed to “touch on all significant greenhouse gas sources/sinks and sectors.” Thus, even if a PCAP did not include food loss and waste measures, these should be included in the CCAP.

As such, the ZFWC is now working on an advocacy plan to encourage its members to advocate for the prioritization of food waste in CCAPs. It will announce further details in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please send any questions to zfwcoalition@gmail.com. For more information about the EPA’s CRPG program and selected applicants, click here.

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The Zero Food Waste Coalition aims to inform and influence policy at the local, state, and federal levels, and share policy updates and opportunities with partners and stakeholders around the country to bring consumers, businesses, and government together to make food loss and waste history. The Coalition was launched by NRDC, WWF, ReFED, and FLPC in April 2023, formalizing a partnership that began in January 2020.

CONTACT:
Zero Food Waste Coalition, zfwcoalition@gmail.com