2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit
June 23-25, 2025 | Seattle, WA
Hyatt Regency Seattle
Ned Spang
Director
Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, UC Davis
Bio:
For more than 15 years, Dr. Ned Spang has pursued research to understand and improve linked food, energy, and water resource systems. He has applied this approach to subjects as diverse as coffee processing, cultivated meat, food waste, microbreweries, and residential water conservation. Dr. Spang serves in many roles, including educator, researcher, and active community leader, all of which are guided by the principle that everyone should have access to sufficient, nutritious food within an environmentally sustainable food system.
As director of the Robert Mondavi Institute, he connects faculty and students with a large network of scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, consumers, and industry professionals in the food, wine, and brewing sectors. He is also the faculty advisor for the Food Loss and Waste Collaborative, an interdisciplinary research program on campus focused on developing solutions and innovative approaches to reducing food loss and waste throughout the food life cycle.
Schedule
Wednesday, June 25
10:45am - 11:45am
[Breakout Session III] The Environmental Effect: The Nexus Between Surplus Food and Land, Biodiversity, Water, and Climate
The numbers are staggering—140 million acres of land, enough water for each American to shower seven times a day all year, the same emissions as driving 54 million cars annually—surplus food has an outsized impact on our natural resources and climate. Zeroing in on methane, 10% of emissions of this potent greenhouse gas come from surplus food, which is one reason why reducing unsold and uneaten food is a key strategy to pull the “emergency brake” on climate change. Join this session and hear how food loss and waste intersects with and impacts larger environmental pressures around land conversion, biodiversity, water, and methane.