HowGood’s carbon footprinting methodology and calculations have recently been recognized and certified by Carbon Trust, the world’s leading authority on carbon footprinting.

As a part of the verification process and in compliance with ISO 14067, HowGood’s carbon life cycle assessment has been updated to include biogenic emissions and account for waste during manufacturing. This means that biogenic emissions will be measured for each of your products and separately accounted for within the product carbon footprint report. They will also be included within the cradle-to-manufacturing-gate and cradle-to-shelf carbon footprints of your products.

How are biogenic emissions measured?

Biogenic carbon emissions is accounted for in two main areas:

Check out this article if you’re interested in learning more about how biogenic emissions are measured.

Which metrics will be affected?

When will this update go into effect?

The process to update all product carbon footprints will begin on Wed, May 8. All product carbon footprints and product reports are expected to be updated by Mon, May 13.

Over the course of the update, you will be able to clearly see on the Product page whether a product has received the update or whether it is still in the queue to be updated. You will also have the option to trigger the update on individual products that have not yet been updated.

What to expect:

Product carbon footprints for all products and materials in the HowGood database will be updated to include biogenic emissions and account for waste during manufacturing for non-biogenic emissions. As a result, the product carbon footprint for Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate and Cradle-to-Shelf for all products will increase slightly. The increase will vary depending on the fuel types used during processing, manufacturing, and packaging. This will ensure that all product carbon footprints are aligned with the Carbon Trust Certification for GHG protocol and ISO-14067 compliance.

Which products are most affected?

While this update affects all products and ingredients, products that include sugar or sweeteners tend to have higher associated biogenic emissions due to the way they are processed.

Will I be able to see the old Product Carbon Footprint of my products?

We’ve recently released the Impact History feature on the Product page (see image below). This captures the history of your product’s carbon footprint and other impact metrics. You also have the option to export these historical measurements for your own records. Moving forward, we strongly encourage that you refer to the updated product carbon footprints of your products, which are aligned with ISO-14067 and verified by Carbon Trust.

Does this affect Scope 3 or reporting data?

This update does not affect FLAG emissions or data within your FLAG annex report.

However, it does affect your Scope 3 report because the carbon footprint (cradle-to-manufacturing gate) of your purchased food materials make up your Scope 3, Category 1 emissions. This means that, you will see an update to your Scope 3 emissions data in Latis.

In order to make this update as seamless as possible, you will have access to a saved report of your Scope 3 emissions prior to the update. You can find this report on the Materials page by clicking on “View Reports” at the top right corner.

If you have already exported this data for reporting purposes, you have a couple options:

Will this affect any of my active claims?

Because the product carbon footprint of your products may change as a result of this update, you may also see a change in the claims that your products receive (specifically for the HowGood Rating and Climate Friendly).

While we do encourage you to reference the latest product reports and claims for any future communications, any active claims that you are already using are still valid and supported by the previous HowGood methodology (please refer to the methodology associated with the validation date of your claim).