Why Carbon Metrics and LCA Should be Approached With Caution

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Why Carbon Metrics and LCA Should be Approached With Caution | Future Business

Every product has a greener tale to tell

Your correspondent, daily, receives a raft of news on the latest green product or service. This week, I heard that Wyke Farms has launched the world’s first carbon-neutral branded Cheddar; ‘Ivy’s Reserve’.

It involves, I am told, pioneering sustainability credentials and ‘carbon neutral’ status. Some of the promises coming from Wyke seem encouraging, others less so.

On farming, Wyke promises reduced emissions at both Wyke Farms and their supplier farms with a committed sustainability plan and incentive programme; covering animal feed, land management and energy use as well as regenerative farming and protection of the soil to bring the CO2 output per litre of milk to 20% under the national average.

On production, Wyke will minimise waste and packaging, recover heat, filter and reuse wastewater, and reduce carbon emissions. The overall aim for the company is to achieve Net Zero production. Further, the cheese will be made using 100 per cent green energy, with electricity and gas sourced from Wyke Farm’s own self-generated solar power and from biogas generated from farm and dairy waste.

Their anaerobic digester saves 20 million kilos of CO2 every year, as well as providing a rich natural fertiliser that is used on local farms to displace artificial nitrogen usage.

The verdict: all of this is good. Wyke has partnered with the Carbon Trust on a cradle-to-grave (another word for LCA) footprint analysis and has certified the footprint as carbon neutral in accordance with PAS 2060.

PAS 2060, it should be explained, is an internationally recognised specification for carbon neutrality and builds on the existing PAS 2050 environmental standard. It sets out requirements for quantification, reduction and offsetting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for organisations, products, and events.

The detail of this process can be found in the project Qualifying Explanatory Statement (QES): Accelerate the mission to Net Zero.

So what’s the problem?

Using carbon offset partner Climate Care, Wyke has supported two high-quality emission reduction projects: peat rainforest protection in Indonesia and solar-energy production in India.  A covering statement notes that Wyke recognises that offsetting is only a temporary solution.

Offsetting is among the biggest bugbears when it comes to LCA. Some sustainability leaders argue it has no place within a truly holistic LCA or cradle-to-grave analysis. Others prefer to see environmental progress coming and promises like those of Wyke in place; even if we know that offsetting is a less than ideal solution.

The point? LCA isn’t globally understood to a single standard, nor is any concrete definition there for what LCA or indeed carbon metrics mean for the billions of worldwide corporates trying to navigate this landscape.

So the upshot is, when we see a headline like carbon-neutral cheddar, even though we might not want to, we need to apply a healthy dose of realism. We can’t be sure that every claim is made equal against a standardised LCA criteria we can trust.

And the logical denouement of this is simple; lack of transparency, potential for greenwash and potential for those truly sustainable and progressive companies to miss out on the plaudits they so richly deserve.

Solving the LCA dilemma

It seems pretty self-evident what is needed; a globally recognised standard for carbon metrics, LCA and offsetting that corporates can rely on. And which we as journalists and concerned citizens can trust to tell us the truth on corporate sustainability.

In a timely manner for this article, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has just announced work on creating a new GRI Sector Standard that addresses the impacts of organisations in the mining sector. GRI, incidentally, works on global best practice for impact reporting, seeking the highest level of transparency for organisational impacts on the economy, the environment, and people.

Mia d’Adhemar, Head of GRI Sector Standards, said: “As a new addition to the GRI family, Sector Standards will help organisations to increase their transparency and accountability for the issues that matter most, driving targeted action to address impacts on the economy, the environment and people. For mining, this is centred around impacts derived from the exploration and extraction of minerals.

“I am delighted that we have been able to appoint such a high-calibre working group, which includes active participation from businesses as well as international organisations and other standard setters. I am confident it will provide the expert and multi-stakeholder insights needed to deliver a Mining Sector Standard that reflects global best practice for reporting by any company with mining and quarrying related operations.”

The GRI tool sounds great, ideal for use in cobalt mining. If only it were the only single metric out there, defined as fit for purpose globally and used universally as such.

Without universality across carbon metrics, LCA and offsetting, corporates will continue to tread a vexed path defining their emissions and impacts. And society and government will continue to struggle in understanding what’s truly inspirational, benign or greenwash when it comes to corporate practice.

SEE ALSO: Calculating the Cost of Carbon Emissions

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