Mars and HowGood-backed food carbon standard targets sourcing and Scope 3 data gaps

F&B companies face growing difficulty in comparing product emissions as suppliers rely on different footprinting methods and databases. Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) are now calling on businesses to help develop a common international GHG footprinting standard through the Global Sustainable Transition Alliance (GSTA).

The initiative aims to create what WRAP calls a “single, scientifically robust rulebook” for calculating product-level emissions across the food and beverage value chain. The global environmental action NGO says a global standard could offer cost and time savings to the sector while improving consistency in data reporting.

GSTA, launched in March this year, will focus initially on GHG, and intends to align with existing frameworks, including the GHG Protocol, SBTi, Partnership for Carbon Transparency, ISO, and Product Environmental Footprint.

Its founding members include Mars, HowGood, Ahold Delhaize, Schwarz Group, Mondra, Foodsteps, and Inoqo. As the standard is developed, GSTA conveners WRAP and WUR are now seeking broader industry participation.

Food Ingredients First speaks with WRAP, WUR, Mars, and HowGood to explore how a common footprinting standard can improve emissions data comparability and influence sourcing and formulation decisions across the F&B supply chain.

Hamish Forbes at WRAP: GSTA aims to cut manual back-and-forth over carbon footprint data to improve trust and comparability.Ethan Soloviev, chief innovation officer at HowGood, explains why a common standard for product footprinting is needed. “Two suppliers can footprint the same ingredient and get very different results, depending on which data they choose and which consultant they hire.”

He argues that a food-specific methodology built on existing standards could close that gap. 

“It makes comparisons ‘apples-to-apples’ and keeps anyone from cherry-picking the data that tells their story best. Without that, the decisions that actually reduce emissions can’t happen.”

Why food carbon footprints diverge

Koen Boone, coordinator of Sustainable Value Chains at WUR, says some of the biggest inconsistencies in food product footprints originate at the farm level.

“As the largest part of the impact of most food products is on the farm level, we also see that inconsistencies at the farm level also lead to the largest differences at the product level,” Boone tells us.

He says significant differences can occur between agricultural carbon accounting tools operating within the same country, while discrepancies between countries “are even larger.”

Scope 3 data adds reporting complexity

Boone says companies face substantial complexity when consolidating emissions from multiple suppliers into consistent Scope 3 reporting.

“Firstly, they have to report emissions following different standards, which leads to additional work. They also have to deal with emissions from supply chain partners that are all calculated using different methodologies.”

“If they want to report Scope 3 totals in a consistent way, they have to spend time correcting the data and asking for additional information on methodologies used from supply chain partners.”

Hamish Forbes, senior specialist at WRAP, notes that suppliers also take different approaches to calculating footprints. Some calculate their own product carbon footprints, others rely on secondary database values. Downstream retailers sometimes model emissions on suppliers’ behalf.

Sustainability teams increasingly rely on comparable carbon data to guide sourcing, supplier selection, and reformulation decisions.“Each consultant, database, or data solutions provider can interpret the Greenhouse Gas Protocol differently, leading to a range of values based on the same activity data.”

“This leads to back-and-forth queries and discussions about any footprints which are exchanged: what is in scope, what background datasets they are using, how they have approached allocation and so on.”

Targeting consistent carbon footprinting

Forbes says GSTA aims to reduce manual back-and-forth through a detailed and food-specific standard.

“GSTA, by creating a more granular standard for the whole food and drink sector, allows manufacturers and suppliers to demonstrate their environmental credentials.”

Boone similarly argues that harmonization could reduce the time companies spend reconciling supplier figures.

“One harmonized standard would save a lot of time and reduce complexity.” 

“We [WUR] also want to support smooth reporting by providing harmonized methodologies and background data for free.”

Mars, one of GSTA’s founding members, sees the shared methodology as important for collaboration across the supply chain.

“Standardization approaches like GSTA’s aim to allow us to speak the same data language across the value chain,” a Mars spokesperson tells us.

“This is a critically important step that incentivizes partnership across suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers to work collectively to improve our impacts.”

Supporting ingredient suppliers with footprint data

Forbes says GSTA also wants smaller businesses to participate without having to engage directly in the full standard-development process. “Local and regional implementing bodies play an important role in providing a bridge to smaller businesses.”

Reformulation and procurement both involve balancing ingredients or suppliers against impact, cost, and nutrition, says Ethan Soloviev at HowGood.The resulting standard and associated background data are intended to be open source, not just to paying members developing GSTA, he adds.

“There is therefore no cost associated with benefitting from the GSTA Standard.”

Soloviev says suppliers do not necessarily need highly granular primary data from the outset.

He divides product carbon footprint information into three levels: basic business information on product composition, sourcing and manufacturing; facility data, such as fuel, electricity, and renewable energy use; and upstream production information, particularly farm activity data.

“It has the most impact, and will take the industry time to collect,” Soloviev says of farm-level data.

Footprinting drives sourcing decisions

Soloviev says manufacturers and retailers increasingly use product carbon footprints to make specific procurement decisions: which supplier, which region, which version of an ingredient gets them closer to their reduction targets.

“They’re also using them to find suppliers whose footprints are already lower and to build collaborations with them. All of that depends on being able to compare one supplier’s number with another’s.”

Boone at WUR expects collaboration with existing suppliers to be one of the most immediate applications.

“Cooperation with current supply chain partners to identify hotspots and reduction opportunities will be the most important use case. If the methodologies, databases, and data exchange become more advanced over time, supplier selection might become another use case,” he says.

Meanwhile, Forbes says better comparability could also help companies move toward taking action from interrogating data toward action. “Businesses are spending too much time sourcing data and querying its scope and method when they want to be taking action.”

He stresses that GSTA “cannot and will not dictate what businesses do with the data.” Businesses will still make sourcing decisions based on concerns such as product demand, availability, and equity.

Food manufacturers could benefit from GSTA’s push to harmonize carbon footprinting across ingredients, suppliers, and production.Forbes says more comparable data could, however, support decisions, such as shifting between protein types or identifying lower-impact options within the same ingredient category.

Carbon data in food formulation

Soloviev says more granular footprint data could also bring procurement and reformulation decisions closer together.

“You don’t need perfect data to start making better decisions,” he says.

“Granular PCFs built only on basic business data are enough to guide sourcing, supplier selection, and reformulation. They’re also enough to start real reduction work with your existing suppliers.”

He describes reformulation and procurement as the same problem. “Both are portfolio optimization.”

“You have a set of ingredients or suppliers, and you’re balancing impact, cost, and nutrition. Put detailed impact data next to cost and nutrition data, and AI plus human judgment can find the combinations that do better on all three.”

For ingredient suppliers and manufacturers, that could move product-level carbon data beyond sustainability reporting and further into commercial decision-making.