Wasted food – if it were a country – would be the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Reducing food waste can help to cut down on these emissions, feed those who are hungry and improve food security.
Food waste experts tell Carbon Brief that “food loss and waste” remains a “major issue”.
There are a range of solutions to tackle the problem, they say, but more action is needed to put such actions in place.
This in-depth Q&A outlines why wasted food causes emissions, why it has become such a big issue and how countries and companies plan to slash waste in the years ahead.
- What is food loss and waste?
- Where does food go after it is wasted?
- Why is food waste a climate issue?
- What are countries doing to reduce food waste?
What is food loss and waste?
Around one-third of all food goes to waste during different steps of the production process – from farm, to truck, to fridge.
Food “loss”, according to the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2021 food waste index report, is defined as all of the edible parts of food that end up discarded in early parts of the supply chain – for example, vegetables that rot in fields before being picked, crops hit by disease and meat that spoils due to lack of transport refrigeration.
These losses occur before the food reaches supermarkets. Around 15% of food produced globally is lost during harvest or slaughter, a 2021 WWF-UK report found.
Food “waste” refers to the discarding of food and the inedible parts of food that are not consumed by people at a retail, food service or household level. This waste can end up in landfill, compost or animal feed.
The vast majority of food waste goes to landfill. As this food breaks down over time, it generates greenhouse gases, primarily methane. (See: Why is food waste a climate issue?)
The chart below shows that the majority of supply chain and household food loss and waste is considered sufficiently edible.
A 2020 World Bank report said that reducing food loss and waste can “make a profound difference” for multiple challenges – reducing hunger, strengthening economies and protecting the environment.
In addition to avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, shifts and reductions in food loss and waste can “promote environmental co-benefits” for biodiversity along with soil and water health, a recent study noted.
Dr Christian Reynolds, a food loss and waste expert and a reader in food policy at the Centre for Food Policy in City, University of London, says waste is a constant struggle because “everybody’s got to eat and food degrades”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Food loss and waste is a major issue for us as a civilisation to tackle. But it’s something that we’ve been trying to tackle for a long time.”
The UNEP report estimates that food waste from households, retail and the food service industry amounts to 931m tonnes every year. Of this, 61% comes from households, 26% from food service and 13% from retail.
Where does food go after it is wasted?
The majority of food loss and waste ends up in landfills, where it produces methane. Food is the most common material put into landfill and incineration in the US, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Incinerating waste results in a lower greenhouse gas impact than allowing it to decompose in a landfill.
Composting food waste also has a smaller environmental impact, resulting in 38-84% fewer emissions compared to landfill, a 2023 Nature study found.
The image below shows the EPA’s “food recovery hierarchy”, an inverted pyramid highlighting the most to least preferred options when dealing with excess food.
The most favourable option is to reduce the amount of extra food produced in the first place. The “last resort” choice is to dispose through landfill or incineration. Composting is the second “least preferred” option.
Dr Dawn King, a senior lecturer in environment and society at Brown University in Rhode Island, says that the main priority for food waste should be, as outlined by the EPA, to “get food to people who are hungry”.
Composting often requires either an organised pickup or a garden to compost at home, she tells Carbon Brief, so it is not always an available option for households.
Individuals can take action on food waste in other ways, but options can be limited, Reynolds says. He tells Carbon Brief:
“For both dietary change and for food loss and waste, there is an individualisation of responsibility to some degree. But, also at the same point, there are some system drivers for this.
“An individual can decide what portion and pack size of something they purchase. However, they can’t decide what portion and pack sizes are on display in the supermarket.”
Why is food waste a climate issue?
Producing food in general – particularly meat and dairy – requires a significant amount of land, water and other resources. It is also often costly to produce.
The global food system from production through to consumption is responsible for around one-third of the world’s annual human-caused emissions.
Greenhouse gases from wasted food account for around half of these emissions, a 2023 study found.
The study said that, in 2017, global food waste resulted in 9.3bn tonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2e) emissions – roughly the same as the total combined emissions of the US and the EU that same year.
As food breaks down in landfill, it generates methane – a potent greenhouse gas. Per unit of mass, methane is 84-86 times stronger than CO2 over 20 years and 28-34 times as powerful over 100 years.
The table below shows a WWF-UK analysis of how different commodities, such as fruit, vegetables and meat, contribute to the global level of food waste.
| Commodity | Volume of waste (million tonnes)³ |
% of total production | Value of waste ($million)⁴ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit & vegetables | 449 | 26% | 160,157 |
| Roots, tubers & oil crops | 261 | 15% | 44,095 |
| Meat & animal products | 153 | 12% | 99,738 |
| Cereals & pulses | 196 | 14% | 56,199 |
| Fish & Seafood | 25 | 44% | – |
| Other | 90 | 6% | 8,930 |
The contribution of different food commodity types to the global volume of food waste (in millions of tonnes), the percentage of total production that goes to waste and the value of this waste (in millions of USD). Source: WWF-UK (2021)
It is not only the methane emissions from rotted food that cause an environmental issue. All of the emissions associated with the production of a piece of food that is wasted – from the land used to grow it to the plastic used to package it – could have been avoided if the food was not produced and left to waste.
Food wasted in later stages of the supply chain – such as after it reaches a supermarket shelf or a consumer’s fridge – leads to even more waste due to the extra resources needed for packaging and transportation. (Food transport is not widely considered to majorly contribute to total food emissions, but some research challenges this assumption.)
The EPA says that 560,000 square kilometres of agricultural land is used to produce US food that is lost or wasted each year – an area the size of California and New York combined. This food would provide enough calories to feed more than 150 million people each year, the EPA adds.
Another issue to consider is the “carbon opportunity cost” of the land used to grow food, especially high-emitting options, such as meat and dairy.
In short, if agricultural land used to grow wasted food was instead restored to forest or wild grasslands, the land would be able to store more carbon, with additional benefits for biodiversity.
So tackling and reducing food loss and waste would reduce emissions from across the supply chain and prevent needless resources being used to produce food that does not end up being eaten.
According to the UN, food loss and waste generates around 8% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions each year – around the same as the global tourism industry. This also comes at a time when as many as 783 million people were impacted by hunger in 2022, according to the FAO.
From a climate perspective, the right solutions to waste can help “unlock a fairer, [more] equitable and resilient food system”, says Reynolds.
Reynolds says food waste should be a bigger focus point for governments in their efforts to reduce emissions. He tells Carbon Brief:
“That’s an obvious thing that we could be putting within the NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions, pledges made by each country under the Paris Agreement] as a piece of policy work to actually highlight food loss and waste reduction as part of the NDCs, and then that would cascade downward.
“There has been some discussion of food loss and waste within the wider climate, but it seems a very obvious pathway that we are not using to our fullest extent.”
What are countries doing to reduce food waste?
Food waste is targeted in a number of different ways through policy, campaigns and individual action.
A global goal to reduce waste forms a key part of the UN’s 12th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) – a set of targets for countries to help tackle climate change, end poverty, improve health and boost economic growth.
One section of SDG 12 aims to halve per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels, and also reduce food losses in production and supply chains by 2030.
But many countries have yet to tackle the issue head on in their policy plans relating to climate.
According to a report by the climate-action non-governmental organisation WRAP, 21 countries committed to reducing food loss and/or food waste in their NDCs submitted before the COP27 climate summit last year.
Of the 193 countries that submitted NDCs, nine countries specifically committed to reducing food waste and 14 committed to reducing food losses, the report found.
Several other countries including the UK, South Africa and parts of the EU refer to other policy documents that mention food loss and waste reduction, but the report notes these policies are not directly included in the NDCs.
The UK and EU
The UK government relies on voluntary action to reduce food waste. For example, in recent years a number of UK supermarkets have removed “best before” dates from certain products in an effort to reduce waste.
A “best before” date is used to signify when food is at its peak quality. A “use by” date is a stricter rule noting the timeframe by which food is safe to consume.
Removing “best before” dates from fresh products such as apples, bananas and potatoes could help to “prevent 100,000 tonnes of household food waste”, according to a 2022 WRAP report.
However, in terms of official policies, the UK government recently disposed of plans to make food waste reporting mandatory for some businesses. Campaigners criticised the decision and said these measures could have reduced food prices and helped tackle climate change, the Guardian reported.
Reynolds says this decision was a “real shame and a missed opportunity” for the UK government. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Food loss and waste is being measured by many companies already. The majority of the supermarkets already are doing this, it’s just not publicly disclosed. So I think there is already some of this happening, it’s just that a piece of legislation would have levelled the playing field.”
Dr Carrie Bradshaw, a food waste policy expert and lecturer in law at the University of Leeds, adds that mandatory reporting is a “necessary, but not sufficient, measure to tackle food waste”.
Measures are also taking place in certain EU countries and on a wider scale across the bloc.
The European Commission has proposed setting targets for EU countries to reduce food waste by 10% in processing and manufacturing, and by 30% at retail and household level by 2030.
In France, supermarkets are legally required to donate unsold food instead of letting it go to waste. A similar law exists in Italy.
Bradshaw says there are many “economic, social and environmental implications of food waste”. She tells Carbon Brief:
“Arguably in seeking to tackle food waste, we should be aiming not at absolute reductions…but reducing the broader climate and other environmental impacts of food waste.
“Distributing the costs of food waste reduction fairly across the supply chain remains a real challenge for food waste reduction, and is why measures which take a joined-up, whole supply chain approach are likely to be important. This in turn is a limitation of the more targeted efforts you see in France, China or South Korea.”
The US
Food waste remains a growing problem. In the US, food waste grew by almost 5% between 2016 and 2021.
Research suggests that as much as half of all US food produced is left to rot, fed to livestock or put from field to landfill due to “cosmetic standards”, the Guardian reported.
The US department of agriculture advises a number of ways for farmers to reduce food loss and waste – including partnering with food delivery box services or donating food.
At the end of last year, Congress approved the Food Donation Improvement Act which “expands liability protections for the donation of food and grocery products”. A group of US lawmakers also recently proposed federal legislation aimed to halve food waste by 2030.
On a state level, some states offer tax breaks to farmers and businesses who donate food rather than letting it go to waste. Others are diverting food waste away from landfill.
Certain restaurants, cafés, supermarkets and stadiums in New York City are required to separate food scraps and other organic waste.
Since a composting law took effect in California at the start of 2022, every jurisdiction in the state has been required to provide organic waste collection services for households and businesses.
But there has been “uneven progress” on the goal to redirect food waste away from landfill since the “groundbreaking” law was implemented, the Los Angeles Times reports.
King says that a lot of food waste is “preventable”, but she believes there is a lack of incentive for many farmers to avoid it. In some cases, it is not “economically efficient” for farmers to sell slightly imperfect fruits and vegetables, King adds.
China
A Nature study published in 2021 estimated that about 27% – or 349m tonnes – of food went to waste each year from 2014-18 in China.
In 2020, the Chinese government announced the “clean plate campaign” as a measure to tackle food waste and raise public awareness on food security.
Sally Qiu, a research associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, says this campaign, and an anti-food waste law implemented in 2021, form part of China’s wider focus on food waste.
The anti-food waste law is a “code of conduct for different entities – like government, companies, schools, catering services – to improve their food procurement management process”, Qiu tells Carbon Brief.
She notes that the “clean plate campaign” appears to be “coming from a food security standpoint, rather than a climate crisis standpoint”. She adds:
“One of the side effects is that reducing food waste is good for the climate.”
Qiu says there has not been a substantial evaluation of progress so far on the success of these initiatives. She says:
“It is a very well-intended campaign. They don’t want people to waste things. But, just based on what I have seen so far, it’s more of an ideal rather than a very substantial achievement [in] reducing a lot of food waste.”
China’s action plan to hit peak emissions by 2030 sets out a goal to “put a resolute stop to wasteful behaviours, and work tirelessly to reduce food waste in the catering industry”. Qiu describes this goal as a “turning point” of the Chinese government making the “connection with food waste and climate change”.
Qiu says the campaign and law are a “good start”, but more tangible targets may have a bigger impact. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These laws and initiatives are more like they’re encouraging people to do certain things. But it didn’t really say what the goal [is]. Peaking carbon has a very clear goal of 2030…I think maybe for food waste, they can come back with more empirical research…Maybe they can set a more quantitative target, an evidence-based target.”
The post In-depth Q&A: What food waste means for climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
I’m terrified by the thought.
Our new report in partnership with Environs Kimberley analyses Woodside’s own oil spill modelling and it reveals a worst-case blowout at the corporation’s proposed Browse gas project at Scott Reef could be up to 30 times larger than the Montara oil spill – one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters to date.
Woodside’s own modelling warns that oil pollution could spread across Scott Reef, the Kimberley coast and beyond, with impacts Woodside itself describes as “severe”, “potentially irreversible” and “catastrophic”.
What’s at stake?
Scott Reef really is like nowhere else on Earth.
Scott Reef is Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef, a pristine marine ecosystem that has thrived for around 15 million years. About 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, it supports more than 2,000 marine species, including endangered pygmy blue whales, nesting green sea turtles, the endangered dusky sea snake and ancient corals.
Yet Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around and underneath it, causing decades of deafening seismic blasting, light and noise pollution, shipping traffic and, of course, the risk of a ‘catastrophic’ oil spill.
What did Woodside’s modelling find?
Before Browse can be approved, Woodside is required to assess what could happen if something goes wrong. We analysed the corporation’s own environmental assessment documents, and the findings are deeply concerning.
Woodside’s modelling shows that the most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history, releasing up to 893,739 barrels of condensate into the Timor Sea. For context, the Montara oil spill released 30,000 barrels of oil.
A blowout of this scale could see oil spread hundreds of kilometres, reaching some of Australia’s most important marine environments, extending into Indonesian and Timor-Leste waters and even washing up along parts of the Kimberley coast. Entrained oil – oil mixed throughout the water column – is predicted to travel up to 863 kilometres from the spill site.
The modelling identifies potential impacts to at least nine marine parks, eight reefs and three Indigenous Protected Areas, as well as important habitats for endangered species, including pygmy blue whales, green sea turtles, seabirds and other marine life.
These aren’t just places on a map. They are globally significant marine ecosystems that support ancient coral reefs, endangered wildlife, tourism, fisheries and coastal communities. A spill of this scale wouldn’t simply affect one reef; it has the potential to impact an entire connected marine ecosystem.
Why this matters now
The most important thing is that Browse has not yet been approved. That means there is still time to stop Browse and the serious risks outlined in Woodside’s own modelling.
The science has been done. The risks have been modelled. The decision now rests with the Australian Government.
Governments are often forced to respond after environmental disasters happen. This is one of those rare moments where they have the opportunity to act before one does.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
The more people who support saving Scott Reef, the harder it is for governments to approve Woodside’s drilling plans – Browse.
Together, we can ensure a reef that has existed for millions of years is known for its incredible biodiversity – not as the site of Australia’s worst oil spill.
Let’s save Scott Reef.
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
Analysis by Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley shows that a severe oil spill at Scott Reef could be the worst in Australian history — Woodside has labeled the impact of such a spill ‘catastrophic’.
According to the fossil fuel company the impacts to Scott Reef ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. Oily pollution could reach as far as the Kimberley coast to the coasts of Indonesia and Timor Leste while endangered marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
Report Summary
Woodside’s Browse drilling plans at Scott Reef have been found to pose unacceptable risks to the Western Australian environment once before. To secure their approvals under Federal and Western Australian law, Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project.
Key Findings
- The most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history – up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill disaster. According to Woodside, the environmental impact of such a spill would be ‘catastrophic’.
- Scott Reef and Sandy Islet could be covered in oily pollution. Woodside has conceded that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’.
- A blowout of this scale could see oil washing up on the Western Australian Kimberley Coast, and affect at least nine marine parks, eight reefs, three Indigenous Protected Areas, and several islands in Australian, Indonesian and Timor Leste waters.
- Endangered and vulnerable marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
- A Browse oil spill threatens important tourism, diving, surfing and fishing hotspots, with potential ‘long term impacts’ for tourism operators in the Kimberley or visiting Rowley Shoals or Scott Reef.
Scott Reef: An ancient oceanic reef system
Scott Reef, located around 270 kilometres off the Western Australian Kimberley coast, is one of Australia’s largest oceanic reef systems. Ancient Scott Reef has been thriving for 15 million years, having adapted to changing seas. Today, it is a haven for marine life, providing vital habitat for more than a thousand species, including corals, fish, sharks and rays.
The deep waters surrounding the reef are home to 29 known species of whale and dolphin, including endangered pygmy blue whales, which travel along the Western Australian coast and stop at Scott Reef during their annual migration to forage and feed. The dusky sea snake, also classified as endangered, lives at Scott Reef. Sandy Islet, part of Scott Reef, is a nesting ground for a small population of genetically distinct green sea turtles, a species classified as vulnerable.
If Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company, were to gain approval to drill for gas at Scott Reef, the ecosystem would face a barrage of industrial impacts, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, underwater noise, artificial lighting, pipe- laying, and fast-moving vessels over years of construction and operation. Add to that the risk of a major oil spill that could be Australia’s worst environmental disaster, with consequences spreading far beyond Scott Reef.
A disaster worse than Montara, according to Woodside itself
Woodside has proposed drilling 50 new wells around Scott Reef to extract oil and gas from beneath the reef as part of the Browse project. Woodside has proposed to build a 900-kilometre-long undersea pipeline to connect the Scott Reef-Browse site with its North West Shelf facility at Karratha in Western Australia, where the gas would be processed, mostly for international export. Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project. Woodside performed this modelling to comply with mandatory environmental impact assessment requirements under Federal and Western Australian laws.
To identify which areas are at risk of an oil spill from the Browse project, Woodside engaged experts to conduct probabilistic modelling. Experts simulated different spills, noting which locations would be contaminated by oil and how much oil would make it to shore. They also assessed how likely each location was to be affected.
” Woodside’s ‘worst case’ scenario is a blowout at the Torosa gasfield, directly under Scott Reef.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley’s analysis shows an oil spill at Torosa could see 893,739 barrels of condensate spilled into the Timor Sea. This would be up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill, considered one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters. Oil leaked into the Timor Sea for days after an oil rig caught fire off the Western Australian coast, causing a 90,000 square kilometre oil slick that spread all the way to Indonesia.
People, places and wildlife at risk
Woodside’s modelling shows that an oil spill at Scott Reef could affect eight reefs, at least nine marine parks and three Indigenous Protected Areas. In the event of a worst-case oil spill, Scott Reef and Sandy Islet, being closest to the wellhead, would be worst affected.
Woodside’s modelling finds that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill like this ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. The impacts of an oil spill are not confined to Scott Reef – according to Woodside’s modelling, ‘hydrocarbon spills resulting from the proposed Browse to NWS Project have the potential to significantly impact shoreline habitats at Scott Reef, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and Rowley Shoals.’
Oil from a blowout could also reach neighbouring countries, including Pulau Rote, Savu, Sumba and West Timor in Indonesia, and Timor Leste. This is not an exhaustive list of all places that could be affected by an oil spill at Scott Reef. Once oil hits the water, its spread is influenced by the wind, tides, currents and other external conditions. An oil spill from the Browse project could have a less or more severe impact than the modelling indicates. Equally, Woodside cannot rule out other sites being affected.
A disaster for marine life
Woodside’s oil spill modelling shows that a blowout from the Browse project would put whales, turtles, seabirds, coral, significant feedstocks such as plankton and seagrass, fish, dolphins and other marine life at risk. According to Woodside, a Browse oil spill would:
- Directly threaten the coral at Scott Reef, with ‘potential for near total coral mortality in the worst affected areas’; a severe spill could also harm coral at Seringapatam Reef and the Rowley Shoals.
- ‘Significantly impact’ the plankton, seagrass and macroalgae that support the entire food chain.
- ‘Significantly impact bird species, including protected species’, which are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to oil spills.
A spill would not only threaten birds at Scott Reef, but those that nest or breed at Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, Browse Island, islands along the Kimberley coastline (such as the Lacepede Islands) and Rowley Shoals. Woodside’s oil spill modelling specifically notes the potential risk to thirteen species of seabirds.
Oil spills also threaten whales and other cetaceans, especially concentrations of oil on the surface of the water. This can cause ‘sublethal and lethal effects’, especially when feeding, as whales and other marine mammals have been found to aspirate oil when breathing through an oil slick at the sea surface, thus absorbing hydrocarbons directly into their lungs, leading to sublethal and lethal impacts.
According to Woodside’s modelling, a Browse oil spill could be particularly harmful to the spinner dolphins living at Scott Reef with the potential for ‘a significant portion of this local population to be impacted in the event of a worst-case hydrocarbon spill’.
Marine reptiles, including the green sea turtles found at Scott Reef, are also at risk. Woodside’s modelling warns that an oil spill could cause ‘significant mortality amongst adults and hatchlings’, leading to ‘the potential for longer-term impacts on the Scott Reef – Browse Island genetic stock of green turtles’. Further, an oil spill could have lasting impacts on the breeding populations of olive ridley turtles, flatback turtles and hawksbill turtles. Essentially, all marine life found at or near the sea surface could be impacted by such a spill.
Woodside cannot be trusted
In Woodside’s inadequate response plan, Woodside states that it considers an oil spill to be ‘highly unlikely’ and the threat to the environment and wildlife to be ‘acceptable’. We do not believe these are credible assertions. For instance, the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which is assessing Woodside’s Browse to NWS proposal, did not agree. In August 2024, it emerged that the EPA advised Woodside that its Browse development posed ‘unacceptable’ risks to WA’s environment.
A potential oil spill from the Torosa field was one of the risks cited by the EPA in its preliminary decision not to approve the project. Woodside has subsequently revised its plans to drill for gas at Scott Reef, proposing to use unproven new technology that the company claims would bring a spill under control more quickly, reducing the spill time from 77 days to 13 days.
However, an independent assessment commissioned by Woodside did not support these claims. Instead, the expert questioned whether the piece of equipment proposed by Woodside — a capping stack — could be deployed in practice, and the time it would likely take to do so.
While Woodside has also claimed that a ‘pyrotechnic shear ram’ would reduce the spill time to as little as 24 hours, the company’s expert noted that this had yet to be ‘used in anger’ and that ‘there remains a risk’ that it fails to function.
Woodside’s alarming track record
Woodside’s stated ability to prevent or control a disaster is undercut by its poor environmental and safety track record. There have been numerous incidents at Woodside’s facilities over the last decade threatening the safety of its workers and the environment. These include:
- Whale calf collision: In August 2023, a tugboat operated by a Woodside contractor hit a whale calf in the Port of Dampier. The incident was only confirmed by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) after media inquiries.
- Explosion at Pluto LNG plant: In May 2023, an explosion forced Woodside to shut down and evacuate its Pluto LNG facility. Woodside was accused by unions of downplaying the incident. Eighteen months later, Woodside was again forced to put Pluto LNG into an emergency shutdown after the control systems failed.
- Oil spill near Ningaloo: In May 2025, Woodside spilled 16,000 litres of ‘hydrocarbons’ into the ocean near World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef while decommissioning its Griffin facility. Three months later, the government regulator ordered Woodside to stop decommissioning operations at Griffin and nearby Stybarrow following a series of ‘preventable health and safety incidents’ at both sites.
- Oil spill in Cossack field: In 2016, a Woodside oil rig in the Cossack field leaked over 10,500 litres of oil into the ocean due to a degraded seal.
- Northern Endeavour clean-up debacle: Woodside evaded a $362 million decommissioning bill for its Northern Endeavour oil platform in the Timor Sea by offloading it onto a one-person operation. When the buyer went bankrupt, the Federal Government had to step in, eventually putting a levy on offshore oil and gas companies to recover the clean up costs.
- Cost-cutting and corrosion: In 2021, Woodside announced a 30% cut in operating costs, focusing on maintenance, despite repeated warnings from the government regulator about corrosion at its oil and gas facilities. The warnings continued. In July 2023, the regulator blamed Woodside’s ‘inadequate maintenance’ for serious corrosion of the flare bridge and support structure at its North Rankin complex.
- Abandoned infrastructure: Woodside finished extracting oil from the Enfield field in 2018. In 2019, the government regulator ordered Woodside to remove the Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring (RTM), an 83-metre-long, 2,452 tonne piece of infrastructure. Woodside instead tried to sink the RTM near the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. After a public outcry, Woodside finally removed the RTM in October 2023.
A lasting legacy for our oceans: Save Scott Reef from Woodside’s pollution
Woodside’s Browse proposal to drill for oil and gas presents unacceptable risks to Scott Reef and the web of life it supports from Western Australia to Indonesia.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley are calling on the WA and Federal Governments to save Scott Reef by rejecting Woodside’s Browse project once and for all.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Analysis by Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley shows that a severe oil spill at Scott Reef could be the worst in Australian history — Woodside has labeled the impact of such a spill ‘catastrophic’. According to the fossil fuel company the impacts to Scott Reef ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. Oily pollution could reach as far as the Kimberley coast to the coasts of Indonesia and Timor Leste while endangered marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
Woodside’s Browse drilling plans at Scott Reef have been found to pose unacceptable risks to the Western Australian environment once before. To secure their approvals under Federal and Western Australian law, Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project.
GPAP illustration of a ‘worst case’ senario oil spill based on Woodside’s own modeling.
Key Findings
- The most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history – up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill disaster. According to Woodside, the environmental impact of such a spill would be ‘catastrophic’.
- Scott Reef and Sandy Islet could be covered in oily pollution. Woodside has conceded that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’.
- A blowout of this scale could see oil washing up on the Western Australian Kimberley Coast, and affect at least nine marine parks, eight reefs, three Indigenous Protected Areas, and several islands in Australian, Indonesian and Timor Leste waters.
- Endangered and vulnerable marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
- A Browse oil spill threatens important tourism, diving, surfing and fishing hotspots, with potential ‘long term impacts’ for tourism operators in the Kimberley or visiting Rowley Shoals or Scott Reef.
Browse and Montara: Location and extent in the Timor Sea: GPAP illustration based on maps from ‘The Montara Oil Spill: A 2009 Well Blowout in the Timor Sea’ and a Browse loss of well containment.
Scott Reef: An ancient oceanic reef system
Scott Reef, located around 270 kilometres off the Western Australian Kimberley coast, is one of Australia’s largest oceanic reef systems. Ancient Scott Reef has been thriving for 15 million years, having adapted to changing seas. Today, it is a haven for marine life, providing vital habitat for more than a thousand species, including corals, fish, sharks and rays.
The deep waters surrounding the reef are home to 29 known species of whale and dolphin, including endangered pygmy blue whales, which travel along the Western Australian coast and stop at Scott Reef during their annual migration to forage and feed. The dusky sea snake, also classified as endangered, lives at Scott Reef. Sandy Islet, part of Scott Reef, is a nesting ground for a small population of genetically distinct green sea turtles, a species classified as vulnerable.
If Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company, were to gain approval to drill for gas at Scott Reef, the ecosystem would face a barrage of industrial impacts, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, underwater noise, artificial lighting, pipe- laying, and fast-moving vessels over years of construction and operation. Add to that the risk of a major oil spill that could be Australia’s worst environmental disaster, with consequences spreading far beyond Scott Reef.
GPAP illustration of drilling sights at Scott Reef.
A disaster worse than Montara, according to Woodside itself
Woodside has proposed drilling 50 new wells around Scott Reef to extract oil and gas from beneath the reef as part of the Browse project. Woodside has proposed to build a 900-kilometre-long undersea pipeline to connect the Scott Reef-Browse site with its North West Shelf facility at Karratha in Western Australia, where the gas would be processed, mostly for international export. Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project. Woodside performed this modelling to comply with mandatory environmental impact assessment requirements under Federal and Western Australian laws.
To identify which areas are at risk of an oil spill from the Browse project, Woodside engaged experts to conduct probabilistic modelling. Experts simulated different spills, noting which locations would be contaminated by oil and how much oil would make it to shore. They also assessed how likely each location was to be affected.
” Woodside’s ‘worst case’ scenario is a blowout at the Torosa gasfield, directly under Scott Reef.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley’s analysis shows an oil spill at Torosa could see 893,739 barrels of condensate spilled into the Timor Sea. This would be up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill, considered one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters. Oil leaked into the Timor Sea for days after an oil rig caught fire off the Western Australian coast, causing a 90,000 square kilometre oil slick that spread all the way to Indonesia.
People, places and wildlife at risk
Woodside’s modelling shows that an oil spill at Scott Reef could affect eight reefs, at least nine marine parks and three Indigenous Protected Areas. In the event of a worst-case oil spill, Scott Reef and Sandy Islet, being closest to the wellhead, would be worst affected.
Woodside’s modelling finds that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill like this ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. The impacts of an oil spill are not confined to Scott Reef – according to Woodside’s modelling, ‘hydrocarbon spills resulting from the proposed Browse to NWS Project have the potential to significantly impact shoreline habitats at Scott Reef, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and Rowley Shoals.’
Oil from a blowout could also reach neighbouring countries, including Pulau Rote, Savu, Sumba and West Timor in Indonesia, and Timor Leste. This is not an exhaustive list of all places that could be affected by an oil spill at Scott Reef. Once oil hits the water, its spread is influenced by the wind, tides, currents and other external conditions. An oil spill from the Browse project could have a less or more severe impact than the modelling indicates. Equally, Woodside cannot rule out other sites being affected.
A disaster for marine life
Woodside’s oil spill modelling shows that a blowout from the Browse project would put whales, turtles, seabirds, coral, significant feedstocks such as plankton and seagrass, fish, dolphins and other marine life at risk. According to Woodside, a Browse oil spill would:
- Directly threaten the coral at Scott Reef, with ‘potential for near total coral mortality in the worst affected areas’; a severe spill could also harm coral at Seringapatam Reef and the Rowley Shoals.
- ‘Significantly impact’ the plankton, seagrass and macroalgae that support the entire food chain.
- ‘Significantly impact bird species, including protected species’, which are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to oil spills.
A spill would not only threaten birds at Scott Reef, but those that nest or breed at Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, Browse Island, islands along the Kimberley coastline (such as the Lacepede Islands) and Rowley Shoals. Woodside’s oil spill modelling specifically notes the potential risk to thirteen species of seabirds.
Oil spills also threaten whales and other cetaceans, especially concentrations of oil on the surface of the water. This can cause ‘sublethal and lethal effects’, especially when feeding, as whales and other marine mammals have been found to aspirate oil when breathing through an oil slick at the sea surface, thus absorbing hydrocarbons directly into their lungs, leading to sublethal and lethal impacts.
According to Woodside’s modelling, a Browse oil spill could be particularly harmful to the spinner dolphins living at Scott Reef with the potential for ‘a significant portion of this local population to be impacted in the event of a worst-case hydrocarbon spill’.
Marine reptiles, including the green sea turtles found at Scott Reef, are also at risk. Woodside’s modelling warns that an oil spill could cause ‘significant mortality amongst adults and hatchlings’, leading to ‘the potential for longer-term impacts on the Scott Reef – Browse Island genetic stock of green turtles’. Further, an oil spill could have lasting impacts on the breeding populations of olive ridley turtles, flatback turtles and hawksbill turtles. Essentially, all marine life found at or near the sea surface could be impacted by such a spill.
GPAP illustration of pygmy blue whale and humpback whale migration path through Scott Reef and a ‘worst case’ oil spill senario based on Woodside’s own modeling.
Woodside cannot be trusted
In Woodside’s inadequate response plan, Woodside states that it considers an oil spill to be ‘highly unlikely’ and the threat to the environment and wildlife to be ‘acceptable’. We do not believe these are credible assertions. For instance, the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which is assessing Woodside’s Browse to NWS proposal, did not agree. In August 2024, it emerged that the EPA advised Woodside that its Browse development posed ‘unacceptable’ risks to WA’s environment.
A potential oil spill from the Torosa field was one of the risks cited by the EPA in its preliminary decision not to approve the project. Woodside has subsequently revised its plans to drill for gas at Scott Reef, proposing to use unproven new technology that the company claims would bring a spill under control more quickly, reducing the spill time from 77 days to 13 days.
However, an independent assessment commissioned by Woodside did not support these claims. Instead, the expert questioned whether the piece of equipment proposed by Woodside — a capping stack — could be deployed in practice, and the time it would likely take to do so.
While Woodside has also claimed that a ‘pyrotechnic shear ram’ would reduce the spill time to as little as 24 hours, the company’s expert noted that this had yet to be ‘used in anger’ and that ‘there remains a risk’ that it fails to function.
Woodside’s alarming track record
Woodside’s stated ability to prevent or control a disaster is undercut by its poor environmental and safety track record. There have been numerous incidents at Woodside’s facilities over the last decade threatening the safety of its workers and the environment. These include:
- Whale calf collision: In August 2023, a tugboat operated by a Woodside contractor hit a whale calf in the Port of Dampier. The incident was only confirmed by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) after media inquiries.
- Explosion at Pluto LNG plant: In May 2023, an explosion forced Woodside to shut down and evacuate its Pluto LNG facility. Woodside was accused by unions of downplaying the incident. Eighteen months later, Woodside was again forced to put Pluto LNG into an emergency shutdown after the control systems failed.
- Oil spill near Ningaloo: In May 2025, Woodside spilled 16,000 litres of ‘hydrocarbons’ into the ocean near World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef while decommissioning its Griffin facility. Three months later, the government regulator ordered Woodside to stop decommissioning operations at Griffin and nearby Stybarrow following a series of ‘preventable health and safety incidents’ at both sites.
- Oil spill in Cossack field: In 2016, a Woodside oil rig in the Cossack field leaked over 10,500 litres of oil into the ocean due to a degraded seal.
- Northern Endeavour clean-up debacle: Woodside evaded a $362 million decommissioning bill for its Northern Endeavour oil platform in the Timor Sea by offloading it onto a one-person operation. When the buyer went bankrupt, the Federal Government had to step in, eventually putting a levy on offshore oil and gas companies to recover the clean up costs.
- Cost-cutting and corrosion: In 2021, Woodside announced a 30% cut in operating costs, focusing on maintenance, despite repeated warnings from the government regulator about corrosion at its oil and gas facilities. The warnings continued. In July 2023, the regulator blamed Woodside’s ‘inadequate maintenance’ for serious corrosion of the flare bridge and support structure at its North Rankin complex.
- Abandoned infrastructure: Woodside finished extracting oil from the Enfield field in 2018. In 2019, the government regulator ordered Woodside to remove the Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring (RTM), an 83-metre-long, 2,452 tonne piece of infrastructure. Woodside instead tried to sink the RTM near the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. After a public outcry, Woodside finally removed the RTM in October 2023.
A lasting legacy for our oceans: Save Scott Reef from Woodside’s pollution
Woodside’s Browse proposal to drill for oil and gas presents unacceptable risks to Scott Reef and the web of life it supports from Western Australia to Indonesia.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley are calling on the WA and Federal Governments to save Scott Reef by rejecting Woodside’s Browse project once and for all.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
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