On Monday, 13 September, St George’s welcomed alumna, Harriet Brown to assembly to speak to the whole school community about the current extent of global food waste and its consequent impact on the environment.
Since graduating from Newcastle University in 2013 with a BA in Psychology, Harriet has actively pursued a career in sustainability and currently works for Too Good to Go, a company with a mission to end social, domestic and commercial food waste.
Harriet presented some shocking facts about food waste for pupils and staff to consider: that a third of all food is thrown away, that fifty one tonnes of food is wasted every second, that food waste is responsible for 8-10% of global greenhouse emissions and the 1.3 billion tonnes of social food waste costs the global economy 1.2 trillion dollars. Harriet's conclusion that, ‘Fighting food waste is the number one solution to combat global warming’ was striking indeed!
Fighting food waste is the number one solution to combat global warming
Harriet Brown
Harriet challenged the St George’s community to take the time to understand the issue of food waste, to increase awareness amongst friends and family and make active plans to reduce household waste, to store food properly and to eat everything on their plate. She encouraged the whole school community to use technology such as the Too Good to Go app which enables users to pick up ‘magic bags’ of food from businesses that would have otherwise been thrown away.
Harriet concluded her talk by reminding everyone that ‘individual actions add up’ and that we are all responsible for reducing food waste and battling global emissions. Educating the school community on sustainability is just one of a number of ways in which environmental responsibility is woven into St George’s life and the school is delighted to be recognised for its sustainability work as a finalist in this year’s ISOTY ‘green’ award category.
Find out more about St George's environmental strategy here