Thursday, January 11, 2018
Building on the success of the UN’s International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development (IY2017) initiative and in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), PATA, along with our project partner, Scholars of Sustenance (Thai-SOS) and knowledge partner Futouris, is launching the BUFFET Campaign to raise awareness of food waste in our industry to drive positive change.
The BUFFET (Building an Understanding For Food Excess in Tourism) Initiative is about bringing together a coalition of industry partners and PATA members to create and implement a campaign that challenges our industry, particularly the hospitality sector, to reduce food waste to landfill.
PATA CEO Dr. Mario Hardy said that with significant growth expected in the industry and especially the Asia Pacific region in the near future, greater waste can be expected. He then added that their aim is to curb that waste by bringing the tourism and hospitality sectors together to reduce our impact on the planet by reducing our industry’s food waste to landfill. Reducing food waste will reduce the cost for operators in the industry while benefiting the environment at the same time.
The main activities in this initiative include the raising awareness of food waste in our industry and the creation of Asia-Pacific focused resources for hoteliers and other hospitality and tourism professionals to drive positive change and ultimately reduce their food waste to landfill. While this initiative aims to impact our industry at large, will be focusing additional efforts on hotels and food and beverage providers in Asia, and specific hotel properties in Bangkok in our Bangkok Hotels Project, with the expertise of Thai-SOS.
PATA is seeking to engage further with hotels who would like to reduce their food waste to landfill, hotels already implementing food waste solutions, potential partners and sponsors, as well as those who would like to help us in raising awareness and building a better understanding for food excess in tourism.
With increasing concern of the world for climate change, food waste has come increasingly under attention in recent years and for good reason:
