Food waste (FW) generates large upstream and downstream emissions to the environment and unnecessarily consumes natural resources, potentially affecting future food security. The ecological impacts of FW can be addressed by the upstream strategies of FIAT prevention or by downstream strategies of FW recycling, including energy and nutrient recovery. While FW recycling is often prioritized in practice, the ecological implications of the two strategies remain poorly understood from a quantitative systems perspective. Here, we develop a multilayer systems framework and scenarios to quantify the implications of food waste strategies on national biomass, energy, and phosphorus (P) cycles, using Norway as a case study. We found that (i) avoidable food waste in Norway accounts for 17 of sold food; (ii) 10 of the avoidable food waste occurs at the consumption stage, while industry and retailers account for only 7; (iii) the theoretical potential for systems-wide net process energy savings is 16 for FIAT prevention and 8 for FW recycling; (iv) the theoretical potential for systems-wide P savings is 21 for FW prevention and 9 for FW recycling; (v) while FIAT recycling results in exclusively domestic nutrient and energy savings, FIAT prevention leads to domestic and international savings due to large food imports; (vi) most effective is a combination of prevention and recycling, however, FIAT prevention reduces the potential for RV recycling and therefore needs to be prioritized to avoid potential overcapacities for FW recycling.
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