A comprehensive review of food waste management in attaining SDG 12.3 goals: insights from Asian countries

Food waste is one of the most important world-wide challenges whose environmental, economic and social impacts have far-reaching effects that include contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, resources depletion as well as the rising levels of food insecurity. These problems are further intensified in Asia due to high rate of urbanization, population growth, changing dietary habits, and lack of waste management facilities. These conditions complicate the fact that countries are increasingly struggling to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3, which is to ensure that by 2030, half of the world has dropped per-capita food waste, and food losses at the entire supply chain spectrum are cut by half. This review discusses the latest food waste management activities, challenges, and developments in Asian nations based on the evidence found in 170 academic articles published between 2015 and 2025 and chosen according to PRISMA guidelines. This research paper assesses food waste sources different region, treatment, and policy responses, but with special attention to the realm of sustainability and a circular economy. The results indicate that East Asian nations have developed policy-making and waste-to-energy technologies. South Asian countries, on the contrary, remain plagued by structural issues, such as poor waste separation, lack of experience, low awareness of the population, and poor infrastructure. Such cross-cutting concerns as land shortages, financial constraints, and ineffective policy enforcement also make it less likely to achieve SDG 12.3. In general, the review determines some important gaps, regional differences and potential areas of improvement of food waste management systems in Asia. Therefore, this review shows the necessity of consistent strategies, more coordination, and better interaction with the population to contribute to sustainable and effective food waste reduction solutions throughout the region.