Food and meals
Sustainable development has become increasingly evident when it comes to food. As a large organisation with high levels of food consumption, the City of Stockholm has an important role to play.
The food served in the City’s operations has an impact on public health and well-being, and affects the climate and the environment. Every day, the City serves meals to more than 160,000 children and students at pre-schools and schools across Stockholm. The City’s work on food and meals plays a major role in sustainable development.
The City of Stockholm’s work to reduce food waste must contribute to a reduced climate impact. Waste is collected and disposed in a resource-efficient way. The goal for the City’s work by 2021, 70 percent of all food waste will be collected – an increase of more than 400 percent compared to 2015 (16 percent).
The City of Stockholm aims to contribute to better public health and reduced climate impact through the food purchased, produced and served in the City’s operations. The City must be a pioneering municipality, where residents know that they are consuming good, nutritious and safe food.
The Climate Impact of Food
One of the goals in Stockholm’s Environmental Programme is for the city to have no global climate footprint. A key part of this is reducing the climate impact of food.
We are working to speed up the transition in how food is purchased, planned, prepared and followed up in city-run services. This includes reducing food waste. Any food waste that does occur is collected and managed in a resource-efficient way.
Examples of what we’re doing to reduce food-related climate impact:
- Increasing the use of plant-based ingredients.Providing more knowledge on how to plan meals with a low climate footprint.
- Including stronger requirements in food procurement to favour locally grown, climate-friendly food.
- Collaborating with local businesses and farmers to increase food production in the region and support more local food markets.
The City’s Food-related Emissions
We measure the greenhouse gas emissions from the food bought for our municipal services.
- Latest figure (2023): 1.8 kg CO₂e per kilo of food purchased
- Starting point (2013): 2.1 kg CO₂e
- Target for 2023: 1.6 kg CO₂e
Our future targets:
- 2025: 1.5 kg CO₂e
- 2026: 1.5 kg CO₂e
- 2027: 1.4 kg CO₂e
Food and Biodiversity
Another goal in the Environmental Programme is for at least 70% of food purchased by the city to be organic.
Food production is one of the biggest contributors to the global loss of biodiversity. Organic farming supports biodiversity – for example, by using little to no chemical pesticides. In Sweden, these chemicals are often not used at all in organic farming.
C40 Good Food Cities Declaration
On 10 October 2019, Stockholm and 13 other cities in the C40 network signed the Good Food Cities Declaration. This agreement recognises the need for global food system change and how our eating habits affect the climate. The declaration includes commitments to:
- Procure food in a way that ensures sustainable supply
- Promote healthy, plant-based food
- Halve food waste and food-related waste by 2030 (compared to 2015 levels)
- Work together with residents, businesses, public bodies and other organisations to develop a fair and inclusive food strategy
You can read more on the C40 website.
School Milk Subsidy
Some of Stockholm’s preschools and schools receive a subsidy for school milk. This means that part of the cost of the milk served is covered by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund.
The purpose of this EU support is to give more students access to milk during the school day. The support is managed by the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket).