Indictment of the Brazilian Minister of the Environment and more environmental news

2021 Food Waste Index published

Recently, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) published the report Food Wasted 2021 . UNEP draws attention to the social and economic consequences of the amount of food that is being wasted, but, above all, it focuses on raising awareness of the environmental consequences. According to UNEP " between 8% and 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with food that is not consumed ."

It is estimated that, annually, 931 million tons are wasted at the domestic and industrial level, of this, 570 million are exclusively household waste. This is approximately 23 million trucks of 40 tons of food wasted. The UNEP press release explains that "if we are going to get serious about tackling food waste, we must increase efforts to measure food and inedible parts that are wasted at the retail and consumer level, and track the generation of food waste in kilograms per capita and by country. "

This report is the first of its kind and is intended to support meeting target 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals : "By 2030, halve global food waste per capita at the retail and retail level and consumers, and reduce food losses in production and distribution chains, including post-harvest losses. "

Accusations against Ricardo Salles, Minister of the Environment of Brazil

Last Wednesday, April 14th, the Federal Police of the State of Amazonas in Brazil publicly accused Ricardo Salles, current Minister of the Environment of the South American country . The Supreme Court of Brazil was asked to initiate an investigation process against Salles for allegedly interfering in the control of environmental crimes, specifically, in cases that are related to illegal logging .

According to Alexandre Saraiva, director of the Federal Police of the State of Amazonas, the Minister has committed administrative advocacy and accuses him of "sponsoring, directly or indirectly, private interests before the public administration."

These accusations are made within the framework of the investigation and implementation of Operation Handroanthu, which aimed to seize the wood from illegal logging in the State of Amazonas, an operation that was carried out in 2020. By the end of that year, Salles publicly defended the businessmen who were investigated in this claim that the wood in question had a completely legal process.

Following the lawsuit, Saraiva was removed from office by the country's president, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Apple has a new goal: eliminate carbon emissions

Last week, the US company announced the development of the Restore Fund , a sustainable forest restoration fund in collaboration with the organization Conservation International and the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Initially, an investment of US $ 200 million will be made. This initiative aims to remove 1 million tons of carbon annually through forestry projects. Likewise, it is expected that the carbon that is trapped in forests will be quantified and blocked so that it remains out of the atmosphere.

Apple has also pledged to eliminate 75% of emissions in its product and supply process. It is expected to reach 100% with the help of the Restore Fund initiative.