Precursor to regulation: a Social Practice Theory approach to food waste policy and practice in UAE hotels [Presentation]

Food waste (FW) has gained global attention among wicked problem areas of sustainability that need to be addressed. Annual global estimates report a third of the food intended for human consumption is wasted, valued at a staggering USD1 trillion – enough to have fed some 783 million people suffering from hunger and food insecurity.
Recent geopolitical events are having disruptive effects in the Middle East region, particularly on food supply chains, further heightening the urgency to address social, economic and environmental impacts of FW. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), FW is estimated to value USD3.5 billion annually, with the hotel sector identified as a significant contributor.
The establishment of Ne’ma as the national food loss and food waste initiative highlights the UAE’s commitment to halve food waste levels by 2030. As Ne’ma remains in its early policy development stages, the private sector, including hotels, relies on pioneering voluntary efforts to reduce FW. This pre-regulatory context creates a distinct challenge for understanding FW policy and practice gaps.
This study offers a Social Practice Theory (SPT) approach to understanding how materials, competencies and meanings explain food waste policy and practice gaps in UAE hotels. SPT’s focus of analysis on practices is argued as the more appropriate framework compared to institutional theory and decoupling, in the absence of hard regulation, or to individual behavioural intention, which is difficult to isolate in operational settings.
The study addresses gaps in the food waste literature through its focus on the Middle Eastern hotel sector, contributing theoretically grounded empirical research to help explain policy and practice gaps in pre-regulatory and voluntary compliance conditions. Ethical clearance has been approved for conducting semi-structured interviews with UAE hotel managers and staff. The practical contributions of this study aim to inform evidence-based policy development, which is critical in the region.