Environmental methodology development

The shadow coffee PEFCR offers sector-specific guidance to help coffee companies produce transparent, reliable environmental footprint studies that meet EU standards and drive sustainability across the supply chain.

The Product Environmental Footprint(PEF) is a standardized approach for measuring and communicating a product's environmental footprint. Developed by the European Commission, PEF simplifies sustainability assessments for businesses and consumers. Since 2014, MXNS|Blonk has been intensively involved in EU PEF developments.

The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) recently launched the GRSB Carbon Footprint Guideline, which will help sector-wide and global consistency in carbon footprint calculations for beef cattle production. Blonk advised on and developed the methodological approach and drafted the guideline in close collaboration with the GRSB Climate Science Committee.

There didn’t exist an up-to-date standard methodology to calculate the environmental impacts of horticultural products, like fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants. To meet consumer and industry stakeholder demands for environmental impact information, in 2018, a project was started to develop uniform calculation guidelines to be accepted across the whole horticultural value chain and in line with European directives. Blonk was part of the project team and involved as an expert.

Growing Media Europe (GME) is an international non-profit organization representing the producers of growing media and soil improvers at European level. Growing media are materials other than soil in situ in which plants and mushrooms are grown. For GME Blonk developed an uniform LCA Toolbox, in line with the European PEF method. A ‘task force’ of expert industry advisers were involved the development of the LCA standard.

To make a fair comparison between the environmental impact of food products, consistent footprinting calculations are necessary. Foundation Earth, an independent, non-profit organisation established to issue front-of-pack environmental scores on food products, is working with Blonk and Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik (DIL) to develop a harmonised methodology and establish a standard for European food product scoring.