We are calculating the footprint for a client in the retail, foodservice, and industrial food sector. Some big food retailers in Belgium (like Delhaize) are asking their suppliers to calculate their carbon footprint, with a next deadline of September 18, 2024. At the moment, the emission factors for specific food products are rather limited in the software. I see it is planned to include Agribalyse. That is great!
I have two questions:
@carbonaltdelete Can you give an idea of when the integration will be completed?
If the integration of Agribalyse is not done by the end of this summer, what do you all think is the best approach to calculate Scope 3, Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services)? Specifically the emissions of the food product (growing and processing), for example canned tomato paste.
I’m thinking of looking for the best match in Ecoinvent and, if there is no good match, using the standard factor for food and drinks. And then using more specific factors for the calculation next year. This is the first time this company calculates its footprint.
We are still evaluating which agricultural dataset to add to the factor library. We are pleased that it received a good number of votes in our online community poll. At the moment we’re most likely to go with the WRAP agricultural dataset (Scope 3 GHG Measurement and Reporting Protocols for Food and Drink | WRAP) (which is more of a collection of several agricultural datasets, including Agribalyse), as it has global coverage and the stages/phases are fairly (but not yet fully) in line with the LSRG structure.
As this integration will probably not happen before the end of this summer, I would recommend to use the custom EF library and create the emission factor that you think is most appropriate for canned tomato paste from the WRAP dataset. Here is the link to the WRAP datasheet (https://www.wrap.ngo/sites/default/files/2024-03/WRAP-Emission-Factor-Database-v2.0.xlsx). It gives some options for tomato paste.