Carbon Council endorses Carbonostics

October 24 2011

The Supply Chain Carbon Council has bestowed its first product lifecycle analysis software accreditation to Carbonostics.

Carbonostics, the food product lifecycle assessment tool, will be listed as a Preferred Supplier with the SCCC* program promoting the application of LCA software methodologies to product-level carbon footprinting.

The SCCC press release statement said, “The accreditation of the Carbonostics LCA Tool recognizes its ease of use, functionality and transparency. In particular Carbonostics due to its ease of use and implementation will open up LCA methodologies to all organizations regardless of size or [sector of the food] industry”.

“We are delighted to have the endorsement and accreditation of the Supply Chain Carbon Council and look forward to working with its members in their efforts to reduce carbon and profitability", Bluehorse President Sara Pax explains.

"Carbonostics represents the cornerstone of a vision within which business leaders have comprehensive, actionable, affordable and credible information with which they can make intelligent decisions affecting the long-term sustainability of the company,” Pax adds.

To learn more about the Supply Chain Carbon Council, click here.

To schedule a Carbonostics demo, reach us at contact@carbonostics.com.

* The Supply Chain Carbon Council is an independent organization with no affiliation with Bluehorse Associates or Carbonostics.

Carbonostics 2.5 delivers new features and options

August 25 2011

Carbonostics 2.5 is live! The upgrades, developed by the Bluehorse team, were designed to ensure that using the Carbonostics lifecycle assessment tool is even more pragmatic, guiding and informative for users during each step of the analysis: as they build a product’s lifecycle, measure its (cost + carbon + nutrition) impacts and model lifecycle scenarios in order to strike the right balance that meets desired product sustainability objectives.

Carbonostics version 2.5 features:

- Improved User-Friendliness: The general look and feel has been improved and we've added functions (including easy-to-read icons for adding and replacing ingredients, expanding edit notes, etc) and Help boxes that will guide you in building your product lifecycle.

- Enhanced Database Structure and Content: The Carbonostics science team has added more data emission factors and data notes to increase your understanding about each secondary data point. They've added a comparison table between similar records to make choices easier and now users can opt to select from more food processes.

- Increased Data Transparency: The Carbonostics Database is already established as the only transparent database on the market, but we've gone further. A methodology tab has been added so you'll have a clear understanding of the methodological choices used in the Carbonostics Database and Math Model. This ensures a more complete understanding of your analysis and how it matches up to international standards and other published analyses.

- Additional Benchmark Results: Carbonostics' Benchmark tab now includes approximately 400 results of food product LCAs performed by food companies and retailers. Even though there is not always transparency about how other people generate their LCA data, we thought you'd find it useful to be able to compare your results with published numbers to get an idea about what other companies in your sector are saying about their product carbon footprints.

- New Graphic Results Options - including Waste: There are now two new options to display your Carbonostics results graphically - (1) carbon emissions against nutrition, and (2) emissions from lifecycle waste only (image below).

We trust you'll find that Carbonostics 2.5 will make using our lifecycle assessment tool more pragmatic, while providing more information so you can feel confident about building your product's lifecycle.

For more information about the tool or its upgrades, please contact Carbonostics at contact@carbonostics.com or by phone at +33/1.47.38.22.64.

New Office in Chicago, New Team Members

February 10 2011

Carbonostics sponsors tools directory

September 2 2010

Cashew Quiz

May 24, 2010

Participants at the LCA Sustainable Supply Chain Europe on May 25-26 were offered a 1oz. snack bag of organic, fair trade, raw cashews from Just Cashews revealing three different product carbon footprints scenarios. The product was analyzed in Carbonostics with a Baseline and two scenarios.

Which lifecycle balances the cost + carbon + nutrition needs of the Just Cashew business?

Here are the scenarios explored:

• If the final product has to be delivered by airfreight to the client (3-10 days), then its carbon footprint is 280g per bag.
• If the final product can be shipped by ocean freight (6 weeks), then its carbon footprint is 90g per bag.
• If the final product has to be flavored (roasted and salted) and shipped by air (3-10 days), then its carbon footprint is 440g per bag.

For distribution at the event, Bluehorse ordered raw, non-flavored cashews pre-packaged in 1oz bags, which were shipped by air.

From this baseline, we wondered, “What would have been the impact if we had planned ahead of time to allow for shipping by sea?”. We have a winner! Here, we find the lifecycle scenario rendering a product with the lowest carbon footprint among these options.

With Carbonostics, the comparative assessment function allows you to run an unlimited number of scenarios against the baseline. We can find out...

• What would happen if the cashews had been shipped in bulk bags and subsequently packaged into smaller bags locally;
• # Or, what would be the change in impact if we had shipped the raw cashews and roasted and salted them locally,
• Or what if we changed the type of packaging to aluminum or a different weight of plastic – taking into account that this might result in more broken packages en route.

The number of scenarios we can explore is limited only by our imagination!

Carbonostics plans to enter U.S. market

April 20, 2010

Carbonostics, a software tool that tracks food supply-chain emissions, will receive a big push in the U.S. market this year.

Created by Paris-based Blue Horse Associates, Carbonostics, already widely used in Europe, allows users to measure any food product or menu across three key criteria: cost, carbon and nutrition. Version 2.0 of the software, released in March, was reviewed by nonprofit The Climate Protection Partnership, which says it "correctly includes all relevant lifecycle stages of a food product."

Currently, Carbonostics is being pilot tested in the United States by major companies including ConAgra (NYSE: CAG) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), according to a Blue Horse spokeswoman. Prior to this version of the software, Blue Horse focused on the European market because it is "more advanced with lifecycle work," she wrote in an e-mail. "We are seeing that U.S. companies are picking up speed on the subject."

Users of the software have the option of manually entering every ingredient in their supply chains into a Web-based interface, using a pre-loaded database or a combination of the two. New users generally spend between one and three days loading up their data and selecting pre-loaded data. The software then returns end-of-life calculations for food and packaging materials, consumer waste calculations by geographic region, emissions related to packaging, and other information, all in easy-to-read graphs that help users pinpoint "hotspots" to focus on.

The tool does not create reports that would be easily digested by consumers, Blue Horse says. That may change in coming months, however. "We are on the front lines of the carbon footprinting and consumer labeling debate and as soon as a Europe-wide or international standard is settled upon, we are poised to evolve Carbonostics to respond and deliver," the company says.

by Charles Redell
Published on: Visit website

Data verified and ranked by myclimate

February 2, 2010

Swiss-based independent organization myclimate recently completed our second annual third-party review. myclimate validated the math model of Carbonostics and completed a full data review and attributed rankings to each data point.

"Carbonostics is a useful tool for product-level lifecycle screenings; identifying hotpots, or in combination with own primary data for detailed product carbon footprints." myclimate managing director René Esterman concluded.

Click here to see the full verification. View a live feed to witness the range of data included and the transparency Bluehorse is committed to bringing you in the Carbonostics database.

Carbonostics News

Carbon Council endorses Carbonostics

Carbonostics 2.5 delivers

New Office in Chicago, New Team Members

Carbonostics sponsors tools directory

Cashew Quiz

Carbonostics plans to enter U.S. market

myclimate verifies Carbonostics