FLPC Receives 2017 Environmental Merit Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency – New England

FLPC staff and students were on hand to receive the award on May 3, 2017. (l-r) FLPC staff Alyssa Chan, students Molly Malavey, Dominique Trudelle, and Katherine Sandson, FLPC Director Emily Broad Leib, and EPA staff Christine Beling and Geoffrey Trussell.

The EPA’s Environmental Merit Award Program honors teachers, citizen activists, business leaders, scientists, public officials and others who have made outstanding contributions on behalf of the region’s public health and natural environment. On Wednesday, May 3, EPA New England presented the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) with a 2017 Environmental Merit Award, recognizing the Clinic’s ongoing work to reduce food waste, and the resulting emission of over 18 million tons of greenhouse gases each year.

FLPC has contributed legal analysis and policy expertise to the issue of food waste for several years. In 2013, the Clinic published The Dating Game, which exposed the confusing system of food date labels in the US and its impact on food waste. Since then, FLPC has authored numerous reports, including the most recent Opportunities to Reduce Food Waste in the 2018 Farm Bill, and convened events, such as the Reduce and Recover: Save Food for People Conference (June 2016). During the award ceremony, Christine Beling, Project Engineer at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, commended FLPC: “The energy and analysis the Clinic brings to the issue of food loss and waste is groundbreaking.”

Thank you to EPA New England for this incredible honor!