Adil Najam Inducted into Champions 12.3
Dr. Adil Najam has been inducted into Champions 12.3, a coalition of eminent leaders dedicated to inspiring ambition, mobilizing action, and accelerating progress toward reducing global food waste and loss. Champions 12.3 gets its name from the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3 which relates to food loss and waste and sets of the global goal to “halve per capita global food waste” by 2030.
Dr. Adil Najam, Dean Emeritus and Professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and President of WWF-International, joins an array of eminent leaders who have joined Champions 12.3, including: Inger Andersen (Executive Director, UNEP); Steve Cahillane (Chairman and CEO, Kellogg Co.); Nguyen Xian Chong (Minister of Agriculture, Vietnam); Arnold Puech d’Alissa (President, World Farmers’ Org); Stefaan Decraene (CEO, Rabobank); Gilbert F. Houngbo (Director General, ILO); Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London); Alvaro Lario (President, IFAD); Ken Murphy (Group Chief Executive, TESCO); Mark Schneider (CEO, Nestle SA); Rajiv J. Shah (President, Rockefeller Foundation); Achim Steiner (Administrator, UNDP); Tom Vilsack (Secretary, US Dept of Agriculture), and others.
At the 2015 United Nations General Assembly, countries of the world formally adopted a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. SDG 12 seeks to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns” and the third target under this goal (Target 12.3) calls for cutting in half per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level, and reducing food losses along production and supply chains (including post-harvest losses) by 2030.
To help convert Target 12.3 into reality, the global multi-stakeholder summit “No More Food to Waste” proposed developing a group of executives who would champion the cause of achieving SDG Target 12.3 – or Champions 12.3., which was then created during the United Nations General Assembly’s Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015. Champions are organizational leaders from all sectors who are dedicated to meeting SDG Target 12.3, and are expected to lead by example on how to reduce food loss and waste, showcase successes and communicate to peers and media the importance of food loss and waste reduction, and advocate for improving the enabling conditions for reducing food loss and waste. Champions convene several times per year, including at the annual High Level segment of the United Nations Annual General Assembly meeting.
Adil Najam is Dean Emeritus and Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and also serves as the President of WWF-International. He served as the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies from 2014-2022. He is also a former Vice-Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Najam on his Pardee School faculty profile.