Gold&Green Foods has begun to measure the climate impact of products together with CarbonCloud, starting with their best seller product Pulled Oats® Nude. The carbon footprint for Pulled Oats® Nude is 2.4 kg CO2e/kg, and the calculation includes all stages from agricultural input to the first customer in Finland. All substantial and relevant steps and processes that cause greenhouse gas emissions are represented in the model. The calculation has been verified by CarbonCloud.
“We believe in transparency and want to raise awareness of the environmental impact of food choices. Our ambition is to make sustainable decisions tasty and convenient. We want to inspire everyone to try more plant-based options. We also see the carbon footprint calculation as an important internal development tool in our climate work”, says Laura Toppinen, Communications Manager of Gold&Green Foods.
Most of the climate impact of Pulled Oats® is generated in the primary production and processing of ingredients and final products. Packaging and transportation play a smaller role. From a consumer’s perspective, this means that unnecessary emissions due to food waste can easily be more significant than emissions from e.g. packaging. Since the climate impacts in the first stages of the value chain make up a significant share of the product’s total climate impact, Gold&Green Foods is looking for ways to reduce those together with suppliers and partners.
Food is one of the simplest and tastiest ways to fight against climate change
There are large differences in carbon footprints between different types of food. What ingredients, from where, and how the food is made matters. However, comparing carbon footprint results between products is also challenging since the calculations can be made by following different methodologies and assumptions. At the moment, the food industry is missing a standardized methodology for climate impact calculation. On a general level, plant-based proteins come with a significantly lower climate impact compared with animal proteins and the less processing the product requires, the smaller the climate impact. For example according to Climate guide, the average carbon footprint of beef is 14,0-42,0 kg CO2e/kg. Based on the Finnish RuokaMinimi study, Finnish consumers could easily reduce the climate impact of their diets by 30–40 % by changing to a more plant-based diet.
“We think increasing transparency on the environmental impacts of food choices is increasingly important. While there are still challenges in the comparability of the carbon footprint calculations of different products, we think it's important to get started and actively drive development towards harmonized calculation methodologies. This is why we’re also participating in a project led by Natural resources institute in Finland (Luke), which aims to harmonize environmental footprint calculation methods for the food industry”, says Lea Rankinen, Paulig’s Sustainability and Public Affairs director.
As part of Paulig, Gold&Green Foods is committed to Paulig’s sustainability approach and long-term ambitions, including the science-based climate targets. Gold&Green Foods took also another step forward in its sustainability work by achieving CarbonNeutral® building certification for its factory in Järvenpää, Finland in May 2021.
Read more & join the plant-based revolution!
Heartwarming & planet cooling recipes: https://goldandgreenfoods.com/recipes-archive/
Sustainability at Gold&Green Foods: www.goldandgreenfoods.com/sustainability
Sustainability at Paulig: https://www.pauliggroup.com/sustainability
About CarbonCloud
CarbonCloud is a research-based food-tech company with a disruptive web-based platform that enables detailed calculations of climate footprints of food products and production processes. CarbonCloud's platform enables food producers across the world to calculate, identify and improve their climate footprints of their products while providing transparency towards consumers.
For further information, please contact:
Laura Toppinen
Communications Manager, Gold&Green Foods
+358 406207183
laura.toppinen@gg.fi
