ICCA Congress 2026在巴拿马城推行“零填埋”餐饮认证并启用新技术追踪厨余

The ICCA Congress 2026 is pursuing The Pledge on Food Waste’s Zero Food Waste to Landfill event certification.

This initiative builds on the Bangkok Protocol on Sustainable Gastronomy, introduced at the 62^nd congress and further developed in Abu Dhabi in 2024 and Porto in 2025.

Benjamin Lephilibert, CEO of LightBlue Environmental Consulting and co-founder of The Pledge on Food Waste, is once again supporting ICCA on its responsible event catering drive.

He shared that this year’s efforts feature two “novel initiatives”.

The first involves the inclusion of his company’s Food Intel Tech (FIT), a proprietary food waste monitoring, analytics, and tracking technology integrated directly into commercial kitchen workflows.

FIT, which is being used by several hotel companies like Marriott and Hyatt, has been adapted for the Panama Convention Center (PCC) and venues hosting the evening socials. Banquet and catering staff are trained to “follow certain strict steps” that will allow FIT to capture required data for the tracking of food waste. Such information relates to how much, when, where, what, and why is food is wasted at the dining events this week.

“PCC has been very enthusiastic about this, and the team has asked about an ongoing system that will extend beyond the conclusion of the Congress,” shared Lephilibert.

The second new initiative is the engagement of an external auditor who is tasked with verifying that “everything we talked about is actually being implemented”.

Lephilibert hopes that engagements with local sustainability players, as well as meetings suppliers, will help establish a lasting legacy in responsible event catering in Panama City.

Supporting ICCA Congress 2026’s pursuit of the Zero Food Waste to Landfill event certification are two food waste management partnerships – one is with a local food rescue organisation, and the other is with a local composting company.

The outcomes of the Congress’ responsible event catering efforts will be announced on the last day of the event.

For now, Lephilibert is hopeful that the event will achieve 100 per cent food waste diversion from landfill.

“Should everything go well, this ICCA Congress in Panama City will be the first event in the Americas to be certified by The Pledge on Food Waste’s Zero Food Waste to Landfill,” he remarked.