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 Leading food companies are responding to pressure from stakeholders by making praiseworthy commitments and policies to eliminate deforestation in their supply chains (either from particularly notorious commodities or even their entire portfolio of purchases). They are also setting ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets that include their supply chains, encouraged by programs such as
Science Based Targets
.
Deforestation accounts for 10-20% of GHG emissions globally. Today, most of those emissions are not "claimed" (i.e. accounted for or reported) by the companies that are responsible - either through production practices or blind purchasing. Only leading companies are including emissions from deforestation and other types of land use change in their carbon accounting. You may think that 10% is not much, but land use change emissions are not evenly distributed across sectors or even products. For companies in the Food & Ag and Fiber & Paper sectors, the emissions due to land use change could be as large as (or larger) than all of fossil fuel and fertilizer-related GHG emissions combined.
Fortunately, recent developments, such as the PAS 2050-1 method, the Direct Land Use Change Assessment Tool, and new life cycle inventory data that incorporate these calculations, have made it possible to map potential deforestation in complex supply chains and estimate the associated climate change impacts. Making this link between deforestation and Scope 3 carbon footprint enables sustainability managers to understand the contribution and relative importance of deforestation in the corporate footprint of their company or product portfolio. If you track other environmental metrics beyond carbon, such as biodiversity, it is possible to link deforestation to these metrics as well.
Most of us think about the usual suspects when we hear "Deforestation": Timber, soy, palm oil, and cattle. After all, these four commodities account for about 2/3 of deforestation globally. If any of these are key commodities in your supply chain, your carbon footprint could look something like this, depending on the origin/region and agricultural practices:
However, sometimes deforestation can be hidden. You may not be buying palm oil or soy directly, but deforestation could be lurking deeper upstream in your supply chain - or associated with commodities outside of "the big 4". For example, bacon and cheese pizza may contribute to deforestation through the soy used to feed the cows used to make the cheese or used to feed the pigs used to make the bacon. Also each product may be packed in cardboard that has caused deforestation during its production. This type of analysis can become fairly complex. In order to have a consistent "zero deforestation" policy, a government or a company can use LCA/footprinting in order to identify sources of potentially "hidden" deforestation.
At the moment, there are several methods and sources of data (like the few previously mentioned) for calculating carbon emissions due to land use change. They are not perfect or even consistent with each other. For companies to be able to track and report their progress on deforestation commitments in a comparable way, the calculation methodologies need be aligned and standardized. However, the time to act is now, more deforestation is happening every day.
Given the magnitude of impact deforestation could have on your corporate carbon or biodiversity footprint, it is crucial to conduct a corporate footprint that includes impacts due to land use change. Not only will it provide information for your supply chain management, sustainability goal setting, and strategy, it will help to bridge the gap between your deforestation policies with the rest of your sustainability management tools and strategies.
Contact Quantis' Sarah Mandlebaum
to learn more on how we can help your activity regarding deforestation issues.
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LCA Food is the go-to event where over 400 sustainability professionals, scientists, and practitioners from industry, academia, and government meet to discuss new developments in life cycle assessment of agrifood systems and share practical solutions. This year's event will take place in Dublin, Ireland from October 19th to 21st 2016.
Quantis is excited to lead several keynotes, presentations and trainings.
See our CEO and Scientific Director share leading approaches through 2 keynotes:
- Unlocking the Value of your Metrics: How leading companies are building strategies and reaching goals based on LCA
- Deforestation: No more excuses
Various presentations from Quantis' food sector experts will provide learnings on:
- The European PEF Pilot Testing on Packed Water
- Assessing Land Use Change Impacts of Food Products Worldwide with the World Food LCA Database
- Credible LCA Communications: the yellow brick road to building budget and buy-in
- The European PEF-OEF initiative: Practical issues and repercussions of using the PEF guidelines
Don't forget to stop by the Quantis booth to chat with the team, which will include our CEO Emmanuelle Aoustin, Scientific Director Sebastien Humbert, as well as our experts Carole Dubois, Xavier Bengoa, Sarah Mandlebaum and our new agricultural engineer Edith Martin!
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New Orleans, USA / Aug 10-12th
The one time of year where retailers and suppliers can sit at the same table to address their biggest issues. Meet Quantis US and learn about emerging issues, trends and technologies that are helping organizations face natural resource challenges and create sustainable value chains.
22nd SETAC Europe LCA Case Study Symposium
Montpellier, France / Sep 20-22, 2016
For this 22nd edition, Quantis will evaluate the environmental footprint of the conference with a closer look at the food value chain. Results will be presented at the event at a dedicated plenary session. Quantis will also hold 3 presentations on "Creating an LCA end-of-life approach taking into account all the benefits of material-loops", "Capturing the benefits of responsible forestry practices in LCA: focus on biodiversity" and in partnership with L'Oréal on "Embedding Sustainable Strategy into Innovation: L'Oréal's Product Assessment Tool"
Sustainable Brands Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark / Sep 26-28 2016
Quantis is a proud sponsor of the first SB event on the Continent. Let's talk about how metrics are helping organizations around the world create and communicate on sustainable brands. Look for Quantis' Carole Dubois, Lori Gustavus, Dimitri Caudrelier and more.
Charleston, US / Sept 27-29 2016
Join Quantis' US team at LCA XVI to learn about calculating and communicating the benefits of vegetarian meals - as well as how to complement your company footprint with a materiality assessment to identify which issues matter most for your agrifood company.
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Food companies are increasingly facing questions about their sustainability performance, policies, and strategies, yet many companies struggle to effectively and credibly communicate their sustainability story. Watch our webinar's replay with Quantis and partners from Nespresso and the Innovation Center for US Dairy to learn how they are communicating on sustainability issues in a credible manner.
We conducted a live survey during the webinar on sustainable communication practices. Today, we are pleased to show you the results through a great example of data visualization, put together by our graphic design team:
The World Food LCA Database (WFLDB) project is an international consortium of players in the food and agricultural sectors. One common objective brings them together: the need for transparent, consistent, disaggregated inventory data for agricultural and food products based on the best science available.
During a recent webinar, Quantis and our partner Nestlé delivered information on the WFLDB project, the content of this database, and how it benefits those involved.
Watch our webinar's replay
if you would like to stay up to date on the latest international scientific methodologies and improve the accuracy of your environmental assessments!
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