Giant step for a smaller footprint
New partnership with CarbonCloud
BY Meelunie 06/10/2021
It started with a drink...
With a growing network, particularly in the food industry, CarbonCloud facilitates the climate efforts of pioneering companies like Oatly and Tenzing. The partnership is a boost for Meelunie’s ‘Plant Based Positive Impact’ mission with its ambition to produce climate-neutral plant-based ingredients. Also making Meelunie one of the first B2B companies to take this leap. Here David Bryngelsson, CEO at CarbonCloud and Gijs van Elst, CINO at Meelunie, discuss their shared aspirations.
“I guess it all started with an oat milk cappuccino from the Swedish oat milk producer, Oatly” recalls Gijs. “It’s a company I greatly admire. Each carton shows its climate footprint as measured on CarbonCloud’s platform, along with the line: ‘Food industry – show us your numbers’. It’s a fierce and fearless B2C marketing campaign, and the partnership between Oatly and CarbonCloud really raises awareness about this important issue. And that’s something Meelunie would like to replicate within the B2B world.”
“We were delighted when you approached CarbonCloud for this” says David. “The cooperation with Meelunie is unique in the sense that they’re one of the first B2B food producers to use CarbonCloud for a factory that’s not even operating yet and a product that will only go to market in 2022. Our network currently includes numerous international food suppliers and producers, most of them B2C. But even they all joined with an existing product or existing production facilities. That Meelunie has approached us before building their fava proteins factory shows that they’re a proactive climate optimizer and, in my opinion, makes them a genuine frontrunner in the B2B food industry.”
Early adopter mindset
David says he really likes Meelunie’s ‘early adopter’ mindset, making optimal use of the science-backed data the CarbonCloud platform provides. “Rather than reactively calculating the footprint then labelling the product with it, Meelunie use the data to make climate-informed decisions that ensure the production facility is even more efficient, or adapt processes to shrink the footprint even further. Imagine what this can do to your benchmark with the competition. It’s also a rallying cry for transparency throughout the chain, as Meelunie customers and suppliers can add their own data, and get unique insights into their own emissions and value chain. This data enables organizations to collaborate and operate smarter and more efficiently. The tool can even show you alternative production and transport methods to further reduce your emissions.”
“I like the way the model can calculate the climate footprint instantly, by combining CarbonCloud’s dataset with our energy consumption figures” says Gijs. “This ensures a truthful and accurate analysis. We’re currently building a factory in partnership with the Danish company GPI to extract protein isolate from fava beans and our aim is to do this in the most energy-efficient and sustainable way possible. For this, we need the factual analysis of our product’s entire life cycle. The idea is to minimize our climate footprint from the outset.”
Gijs also stresses the importance of transparent communication. “Once we have the climate footprint assessment of our production process around fava protein isolate in Denmark, we’ll communicate this on our packaging and in the order documents. But more importantly, we’ll use it in our mission to support protein transition and fight climate change. Rest assured, we’ll be keeping everyone posted.”
About CarbonCloud
CarbonCloud distills systematic climate knowledge into an easy-to-use platform for food companies to calculate, chart, and improve their climate impact – throughout the chain, through time, and with primary data. Food companies can transparently communicate their climate performance in numbers to consumers who, in turn, can compare the climate impact of their food with a fair, common yardstick. CarbonCloud’s customer portfolio includes some of the most prolific and progressive food companies from all over the world and was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden by climate researchers.
Visit their website for more information: www.carboncloud.com