2025 – Emergy accounting of surplus food donation: Health Co-benefits and environmental implications using CEAGESP (Brazil) as a case study

Resumo (EN)

The wastage of surplus food poses significant environmental and social challenges, depleting valuable resources and exacerbating food insecurity, particularly among vulnerable populations. This study evaluates the envi­ronmental performance of surplus food donation compared to landfilling with energy recovery, using the emergy accounting method. Results show that for every 1 solar emjoule (sej) invested in the food donation system, 33 sej are saved through avoided food production, demonstrating a highly favorable emergy return. The donation
scenario yields a net emergy gain of 5.73E+15 sej/ton of surplus food, while the landfill scenario presents a negative emergy result of − 7.46E+14 sej/ton. These findings fully align with the principles of the Food Recovery Hierarchy. This study addresses a critical scientific gap by incorporating collateral consequences into the emergy framework -specifically, the avoided demand for hospitalization resulting from improved nutrition enabled by surplus food donation. The emergy savings associated with this health-related benefit (2.17E+16 sej/ton) are comparable to the total emergy invested in operating the donation system (2.19E+16 sej/ton). This study demonstrates the importance of expanding system boundaries to capture social co-benefits in emergy assess­ ments. The findings support prioritizing food donation over landfill disposal and highlight the need for policy frameworks that incorporate emergy accounting to drive resource-efficient food waste management strategies.