Londonderry, NH – Stonyfield, the world’s leading organic yogurt company, now has full ongoing life cycle carbon footprint capability, thanks to a ground-breaking software that tracks the actual amount of greenhouse gases produced throughout a product’s life.
"By measuring the full life cycle emissions of all of our products in real-time, Stonyfield is forging a new model for realizing greater transparency, building consumer trust, and creating a corporate culture where innovation and sustainability can be used interchangeably," said Walt Freese, Stonyfield CEO.
Developed in Europe through a joint partnership between parent company Danone and software provider SAP, the new solution provides an automatic way to track all of Stonyfield’s material use, which is a critical part of any carbon footprint. Stonyfield has been calculating its carbon footprint for years, but it had always been a manual and painstaking process.
"Until now, companies have typically reported a very limited amount of their actual greenhouse gases and have been unable to report the more challenging areas featured in Stonyfield’s new software," said Wood Turner, Stonyfield's Vice President of Sustainability Innovation. "Now we‘re able to get an immediate understanding of the climate impact of every single ingredient in our products as they’re made, which allows us to both react quickly toward reducing impact and adjust our approach to making a continually lower-impact yogurt."
The software examines three levels, or scopes, of emissions: sources Stonyfield owns or controls, such as natural gas used on site or fuel used in company cars; the energy it purchases, such as electricity used at the plant and in company offices; and the emissions from sources and processes the company doesn’t own or control but are related to the business, such as the production of ingredients like organic milk and fruit. This last category is the most difficult to measure, and most companies don’t track their emissions to this degree at all.
At Stonyfield, as soon as materials are used to fulfill a production order, the tool automatically attaches carbon footprints to each material in the order. Explained Stonyfield Carbon Master Mary Fischer, "The majority of our carbon footprint is in our raw ingredients. This tool allows us to see exactly where those emissions are, and to track targeted efforts to reduce them."
Soon the software will have the capability to calculate not just carbon, but water footprints as well. Noted Fischer, "We hope that our footprinting work will provide a model for other companies to follow, and help lead to greater transparency in the food industry – something that is desperately needed in the U.S."
Find out more about Stonyfield’s carbon footprint by visiting the Stonyfield website at http://www.stonyfield.com/healthy-planet/our-roadmap-green-business/our-carbon-footprint
About Stonyfield
Stonyfield, celebrating its 29th year, is the world's leading organic yogurt company. Its certified organic yogurt, smoothies, milk, cultured soy, frozen yogurt and ice cream are distributed nationally. The company advocates that healthy food can only come from a healthy planet. Its use of organic ingredients helps keep over 200,000 farm acres free of toxic, persistent pesticides and chemical fertilizers known to contaminate soil, drinking water and food. To help reduce climate change, Stonyfield offsets all of the CO2 emissions generated from its facility energy use. Stonyfield also donates $2 million of its yearly profits to efforts that help protect and restore the Earth. For more information about Stonyfield, its products and initiatives, visit www.stonyfield.com or follow Stonyfield on Twitter @Stonyfield and on Facebook www.facebook.com/StonyfieldFarm.
Source: Stonyfield