The answers to your most frequently asked questions
Foodsteps is a food sustainability platform that provides instant access to industry-leading data and insights that food services companies and food manufacturers can trust to accurately measure, reduce and report their environmental impact.
Foodsteps was founded by Anya Doherty in 2019 while she was researching sustainable food systems at the University of Cambridge. Anya’s work included co-leading the largest experimental trial on carbon labelling for food and conducting an environmental impact assessment. She recognized the opportunity to apply this research directly to empower the food industry to accelerate its journey to net zero, and so Foodsteps was born.
The Foodsteps database consists of 3,000 individual studies, which are a combination of academic research, our own primary studies, and third-party supplier-specific LCAs from the industry. Our database is primarily composed of data sourced from the seminal meta-analysis by Poore & Nemecek in 2018, which covers the impacts of a wide range of food products - from beef and dairy to beans, pulses, and root vegetables—from the farm stage up to the retail stage (including any processing, packaging, and transport in between). Foodsteps has supplemented this with a wide range of data, either publicly available or accessible through our ongoing collaborations with academia, industry, and research organisations. These include WRAP, the University of Oxford, WWF and Hestia. All external data is recalculated and harmonised to our methodology before being added to our food impact database to ensure consistency and comparability. To achieve a cradle-to-grave (farm-to-end-of-life) assessment, Foodsteps has created unique models for the environmental impacts of post-retail life-cycle stages where variability is high and data availability often low. This includes the end-mile transport of food items (from the point of sale to consumption), pre-preparation storage, cooking, post-preparation storage, and the end-of-life disposal of any wasted food.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method of measuring the environmental impact of a product across its stated lifetime. LCAs are used to understand the detailed impact of a food item across a range of environmental indicators at each stage of its life cycle, from the farm stage all the way through to the end of its life as waste material.
Yes, Foodsteps LCAs are aligned with the ISO 14040 Standard, and follow the GHG Protocol Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard. Foodsteps can organise for the assessment to be reviewed and verified by an independent third party where required.
The life cycle of a product consists of various individual activities, and the emissions from these activities are often categorised into different life cycle (LC) stages to aid interpretation and facilitate reporting. The stages that are defined for a food product’s life cycle are:
- Farm: Emissions arising from land use change (burning and carbon stock), farming, feed, and on-farm processing.
- Processing: Emissions arising from the processing and storage of ingredients.
- Packaging: Emissions arising from raw material acquisition, pre-processing, manufacture of packaging, transport to product systems, and end-of-life after disposal.
- Transport: Emissions arising from the transport of ingredients between stages. This includes transport from the farm to the processor, from processor to retail, and between processors if there are multiple. This also includes storage throughout the life-cycle journey, such as household storage, both pre-and post-preparation. This does not include the end-mile transport from the retailer to the consumption location.
- Retail: Emissions arising from retail operations. This includes the impacts of any chilling at retail and apportioned impacts of the retail facility, such as lighting and air conditioning.
- End-Mile: Emissions arising from transporting food items from our retail location to the location of consumption. This does not include the transport of the consumer to the retail location.
- Cooking: Emissions that arise from food preparation, such as appliance usage.
- Food Waste: Emissions arise from product disposal throughout the life cycle by anaerobic digestion, composting, incineration, sewer disposal, and landfilling. This also includes emissions from the production of food lost throughout the supply chain.
A Scope 3 assessment evaluates indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that occur throughout a company's value chain, both upstream and downstream. Foodsteps focuses on Category 1, Purchased Goods and Services, specifically limited to food and drink items, calculating emissions in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard. The system boundary of these assessments is cradle-to-gate. Foodsteps uses a mass-based approach, applying emissions factors to procured items based on their mass in kilograms, providing a more accurate measurement than traditional sales volume-based methods. These calculations are performed at the ingredient and SKU level, including breaking down complex ingredients into sub-ingredients. Scope 3 assessments can be used for a multitude of environmental disclosures and regulations such as Science Based Targets, including Farm, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) emissions, The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).
Scope 3 assessments are an overall assessment of food and beverage purchases within a one-year period, aligned with the GHG Protocol. Scope 3 assessments contribute to corporate-level reporting, focusing on your businesses emissions across your supply chain in aggregate. In Scope 3 assessments, Foodsteps measures the impact of the volume of the food and drink your business purchases, measuring impact SKU by SKU and then aggregating these SKU-level emissions for one topline emissions figure. When measuring Scope 3 emissions we measure impact of each procured food item from cradle-to-gate.
Granular LCAs are highly detailed reports that measure the impact of a single product, multiple products or ingredients. LCAs contribute to product-level reporting, focusing on the environmental impact of a product across key stages including s farm, processing, transport, cooking, and end of life. In an LCA, Foodsteps measures the impact of your product or ingredient to a higher level of granularity, providing deeper insight into the drivers of impact and allowing for the management of these impact hotspots. LCAs can feed into Scope 3 Assessments to help you gain higher accuracy within your food procurement categories. Foodsteps applies a cradle-to-grave system boundary for product and recipe-level LCAs
A carbon label indicates the GHG emissions of a product using a carbon rating, carbon intensity, or both. These labels help clients and diners quickly understand the carbon impact of their choices. We offer a variety of labels in different formats to help clients display as much or as little information as they need. These labels include a carbon rating from Very Low (A) to Very High (E), using a traffic light system—green for Very Low and red for Very High—similar to nutritional labels. This system ensures a consistent assessment of carbon intensity, regardless of portion size. We also provide labels that show the amount of carbon in the product, displayed as CO2e per kg. Foodsteps calculates the carbon footprint of food items from cradle-to-grave using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data, covering emissions from farming to waste disposal. The emissions factors that Foodsteps uses to support these carbon footprints are determined via direct LCA studies of a given food item, LCA studies of proxy items where direct studies are unavailable, or derived from a mass-weighted combination of studies for multi-ingredient food items. The A to E rating system is aligned to planetary boundaries which define the safe operating space for the impacts of the global food system.
Carbon footprint per kilogram," also known as "carbon intensity," refers to the emissions from one kilogram of any food product. This carbon intensity value is displayed on the product’s label (kg CO2e per kg of the item), allowing for easy comparison between the impacts of the same quantity of different food products. "Carbon footprint" refers to the greenhouse gas emissions released during a product’s life cycle for a specified quantity of the item under assessment. This quantity might be the product’s serving size, packaged weight, or another chosen amount, and it is measured in total kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kg CO2e) for that specified quantity. The greenhouse gases included in the kilograms of CO2 equivalents (kg CO2e) calculation are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride. Although each of these gases has a different global warming potential (GWP), they have been standardised against the GWP of carbon dioxide to determine an aggregate climate change impact.
When clients are able to provide the sourcing country of an ingredient, and the Foodsteps database has relevant studies for that country, this information will be reflected on the product label. If relevant studies are not available for the specified sourcing country, Foodsteps will use a composite regional or global average impact for the ingredient. When the country of origin is unknown, Foodsteps calculates the carbon footprint of food items based on the average sourcing profile of that ingredient in the consumption country, using international trade data from UN Comtrade and production volume data from FAOSTAT.
A Foodsteps FoodStory is a strategic marketing tool designed to provide consumers with detailed insights into the calculations behind our carbon labels. FoodStories help you comply with the Green Claims Code by providing verified information on the data that supports your public-facing sustainability claims. They can also explain Foodsteps’ methodology and highlight your business's efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its food products. If your business would benefit from utilising a FoodStory, please contact your Customer Success Manager for more information.
