Embedding sustainability in everyday business

In order to reduce environmental impact or CO2e emissions, the first step is to measure. Bühler has measured the CO2e footprint of all the products processed through its technology and also quantified other key environmental impacts such as land use and water consumption. The team is now also supporting customers with such quantifications. The methodology behind the CO2e assessments is based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG), the most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standard worldwide. It provides customers with a calculation of CO2e – the amount of all greenhouse gases together, expressed in a single figure – relative to any specific manufacturing activity.
 

The team has already carried out 35 CO2e quantifications, three of which have been certified according to ISO standard 14067, which sets out the international requirements and guidelines for quantification and reporting of the carbon footprint of a product. Furthermore, the methodology has been used externally with customers for seven products and solutions. The Environmental Quantification Service is now available for every market and every customer. “We can certify the customer’s site and products with the confidence that the results meet international standards,” explains Manzolini. “The program is available for every market and every customer to understand their impact. In the case of B2C customers, since the service is fully validated,  it provides them with information they can use to label their final products.”

In order to take action, it is necessary to understand the source of emissions. The GHG protocol broadly divides emissions into three categories. Scope 1 includes direct emissions from a company’s facilities and vehicles, Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from purchased electricity. These are the emissions over which the producer has most control and therefore where companies focus most efforts at reduction. Scope 3 is more challenging because it covers emissions over which a business has less control – those from its upstream and downstream activities. 

What is the CO2e footprint of 1 ton of flour, for example? If we start with a typical flour mill, by far the biggest source of emissions is the milling itself. But other processes also contribute, such as blending, cleaning, bagging, loading, screening, and pelletizing. That covers Scopes 1 and 2. But the full answer depends on many other factors, including the amount of fertilizer, pesticides, and fuels used on the farm, the energy used for storage, transport, and manufacturing, the materials used for packaging, and so on. To get a complete and accurate picture, data is required from across the entire value chain.
 

It’s not an easy task, but it’s an important one, because otherwise companies cannot properly start to reduce their environmental impact. The Environmental Quantification Service can quantify emissions even where Bühler technology is not used by applying standard emission factors. This enables the team to scale up the emission metrics throughout the whole value chain to give a sector or industry calculation. “You want to know what the CO2e footprint of your 1 ton of flour is as closely as possible by looking at each value chain step – not just the total average,” says Manzolini. “It is this level of detail that drives fact-based decision-making and will help you determine the optimal actions to take to reduce your specific CO2e footprint.”

This is why communication, transparency, and collaboration with suppliers and other stakeholders is vital. “Beyond calculating your own CO2e footprint, businesses need to communicate with other stakeholders,” says Béatrice Conde, Food Science Officer at Bühler. “The more information and transparency there is in the supply chain, the better companies can work together up and down their value chains to reduce their overall impact.”