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The Zero Food Waste Coalition has expanded its Steering Committee for the first time since its founding, adding the US Composting Council (USCC) and The Farmlink Project to bring more direct composting, agriculture, and supply-chain experience into national food waste policy discussions.
The coalition was founded by Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ReFED, and the World Wildlife Fund. It now includes more than 350 member organizations spanning businesses, nonprofits, local governments, and agricultural interests.
For the USCC, the new role creates a more formal opportunity to shape federal and state policy around the management of inedible food scraps and the role of composting in a circular food system.
“USCC has been participating with the Zero Food Waste Coalition since its beginning, and it is gratifying to participate more fully in partnership with these allies in not only reducing waste but in ensuring better circularity of inedible food scraps through compost,” said Linda Norris-Waldt, Executive Director of USCC.
The Council represents more than 1,600 members across the composting industry and 17 state chapters. Its policy work includes advocacy around measures such as the COMPOST Act, along with broader efforts to expand compost manufacturing, strengthen markets, and improve access to composting infrastructure.
The Farmlink Project brings a different but complementary perspective. The organization works with farmers to redirect surplus produce to communities in need and has rescued more than 500 million pounds of food. Its addition to the Steering Committee gives the coalition another direct connection to agricultural production and food recovery.
Katie Naessens, Executive Director of the Zero Food Waste Coalition, said the new members will strengthen the coalition’s ability to translate on-the-ground experience into policy. “We are thrilled to draw on the expertise of The Farmlink Project and the US Composting Council,” she said. “Their guidance will strengthen our work, and we look forward to advancing new policies that substantially reduce food loss and waste.”
The coalition coordinates advocacy across federal, state, and local policy, bringing together environmental, hunger relief, agricultural, and economic interests around shared food waste priorities.
For composting, the expansion gives the industry a stronger seat at the table as policymakers consider how to reduce food waste while also building systems for the material that cannot be prevented or recovered for human consumption. USCC said it plans to use its position to help put composting priorities in front of state and federal legislators and connect coalition members with the operational realities of managing inedible food scraps.
The Steering Committee expansion comes as food waste policy continues to broaden beyond prevention and recovery to include the infrastructure needed to process unavoidable organic waste and return nutrients to soils.
