Why consider emissions from food purchases?
For companies in the food industry, or companies registering important food inventories on a yearly basis, the impact of food purchases usually accounts for an important share of total emissions.
In such cases, it is essential to measure food emissions using a physical approach instead of the monetary one, in order to gain an interesting granularity.
The impact of a food purchase takes into account emissions related to its whole life cycle, from agriculture to consumption. It also varies depending on the activity of the company purchasing the product, and its location in the product’s value chain.
Difference raw material module VS food module
The main reason we separate food purchases from other products is to give you a clearer and more detailed look at your data. By isolating food items, we can provide a more in-depth analysis and present your information in a more meaningful way through the graphs on our platform and in your reports.
This separation allows for a more granular understanding of your spending and consumption habits specifically related to food, helping you make more informed decisions.
Type of raw data
💡The aim of a food study is to calculate the impact of a company’s food purchases during a studied year.
The temporal scope of the study is the financial year of the GHG Report
🎯 The format of the collected data is as follows:
Granularity: the format is an inventory → the module requires the list of all products purchased over the studies year (description and category)
Measured values: total volumes (in KG) that have been purchased per product in the inventory, during the studied year
For a comprehensive guidance on data collection details, read the “Data collection guide” article
Processing between methodologies
👉 Data processing is exactly the same, whether the assessment’s referential is GHG Protocol or BEGES
Types of emission factors
👉 Agribalyse
💡 Agribalyse is the French reference database on the impact of food products. It contains around 2, 500 product references and can be used for international companies → The majority of emission factors used in a food study come from this database
🎯 Each emission factor is linked to four purchase categories, from the most generic to the most precise level (e.g.: *“Fruit, vegetables, legumes and oilseeds” → “Vegetables” → “Eggpant” → “Eggplant, cooked”). *These categories are part of a Tree, based on the CIQUAL categorization
In addition to generic emission factors, Agribalyse provided lists of labelled (Bleu Blanc Coeur, Label Rouge) and organic product EFs (only for a specific list of products however)
For each emission factor, Agribalyse provides a breakdown per lifecycle stage (agriculture, transformation, packaging, transport, distribution and consumption)
This breakdown makes it possible to exclude stages from the total value of the EF 👉 There are two situations where it would be necessary to exclude one of these steps or more:
Another specific study that would double count with one of the stages (frequently packaging or transport) is done for the same company
Some stages are irrelevant due to the company’s business
Example: a hotel that manages a restaurant → the “consumption” stage corresponds to scopes 1& 2 of the hotel (energy consumptions from the kitchens), and there is no “distribution” stage as they don’t sell to distributors (food products end at the restaurant → the value chain does not go further)
Here is a list of common exclusions:
Total w/o (distribution)
Total w/o (consommation)
Total w/o (packaging)
Total w/o (transport)
Total w/o (packaging, transport)
Total w/o (distribution, consommation)
Total w/o (transport, distribution, consommation)
Agriculture & Transformation
👉 Average emission factors
An average EF value has been created for each category within the Tree mentionned above → Average EFs are useful when product descriptions from the raw data do not allow to identify precise products (e.g.: “Fruits”, “sweet biscuits”…)
The value of each average EF is the average value of all EFs from Agribalyse that are included in the corresponding category of the Tree
👉 Chemical products
The module contains a list of chemical products that are commonly registered in a food inventory. They come from three databases: Base empreinte, Carbon Cloud and EcoInvent