Nairobi, 15 July 2013- The theme for World Environment Day 2013 was Think.Eat.Save - 'Reduce your food print' focusing on reducing food waste and food loss globally. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.
Greening the Blue, a programme aimed at raising awareness of the importance of sustainability throughout the UN system ran a campaign on World Environment Day asking UN staff to make a food-waste related pledge, take a photo of this pledge, and enter a draw. Greening the Blue's audience took the theme to heart and an overwhelming number of pledges were received from around the globe.
Each photo was entered in to a prize draw and a winner was drawn at random during a recent meeting of the Issue Management Group on Environmental Sustainability Management in Paris.
The winning photo featured Virginia Njoroge and Bo Yoon Jang from UNEP in Nairobi who chose to pledge to "only take what I can eat".
"The reason why I chose that particular pledge is that, it pains me to see people in our country dying of lack of food while others are wasting food. I believe there is enough food for all of us, if we only learn to share. We should cultivate a culture of taking only what we need, "said Virginia Njoroge.
"Whenever I visit good food restaurants in Korea with my food lover friends I eat a lot but I rarely leave food. I just want to say that if you love and enjoy food, you must think about the result as well when you make any food waste. This price is very meaningful for me as a foodie and I am very proud of it! ," added Bo Jang.
Virginia and Bo have been sent a set of food storage containers to help them to further reduce their food prints.
Some of the pictures entered in the contest can be viewed at the Greening the Blue Facebook Gallery
