2024 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit
June 11-13, 2024 | Baltimore, MD
Minnie Ringland
Manager, Climate & Insights
ReFED
Bio:
Minnie Ringland serves as ReFED’s Manager of Climate & Insights, studying the greenhouse gas emissions factors used to link food waste to climate change, translating these findings to support ReFED's partners and solution providers, and generally working to improve our understanding of food waste's impacts. She also supports key Data & Insights work, including Insights Engine updates and food business initiatives. Minnie has followed an interest in food systems since college, where she led the Food Action student club, working on food waste and nutrition issues, and helped organize the annual Yale Food Systems Symposium in 2015. She holds a master’s degree from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, where her capstone project investigated emissions and carbon sequestration associated with Santa Barbara County's agricultural lands.
Schedule
Wednesday, May 20
1:30pm - 2:30pm
"The Full Footprint: The Real Climate Cost of Food Waste and How to Talk About It"
Breakout
Food waste is a climate problem—but not just in the ways most people think. Its full environmental toll touches some of the most potent forces driving climate change. Methane and nitrous oxide, both superpollutants with warming potential far exceeding that of CO2, are released throughout the food waste lifecycle. Refrigerants used across the cold chain rank among the most harmful greenhouse gases on the planet. Synthetic fertilizers used to grow food that is never eaten carry their own enormous emissions footprint. And that's before accounting for the staggering volumes of water embedded in discarded food, or the social cost of carbon—a measure of the true economic harm of emissions. This session is designed to give attendees both the scientific grounding to understand these impacts and the messaging tools to communicate them in ways that are honest, accessible, and built to bring more people to the table.