Scope 3 Calculation for Food Companies

Get Scope 3 emissions across your product portfolio, suppliers, and value chain. Built for reporting, compliance, and continuous reduction.

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Greenhouse Gas Protocol : What is Scope 3 reporting?

Scope 3 reporting covers indirect emissions across a company's value chain, including purchased goods and services, ingredients, packaging, transport, and other upstream and downstream activities. For food retailers and producers, Scope 3 typically represents the largest share of total emissions and is also the most complex to measure.

The Challenge

Building reliable Scope 3 data requires visibility into the products and value chains behind emissions. Retailers need consistent and comparable climate data across thousands of products and suppliers, while producers need better insights into the ingredients, packaging, and processes that shape their product footprints.

Scope 3 in your business : From Reporting to Action

For Food Retailers

  • Build accurate Scope 3 reporting across your full assortment with product-level emissions data.
  • Break down emissions by Scope 3 category and track progress toward SBTi targets, including FLAG.
  • Identify emission hotspots across products, suppliers, and categories to prioritize climate action.
  • Simulate assortment, supplier, and private-label changes to understand their climate impact.
  • Keep Scope 3 data transparent, traceable, and automatically up to date.
More about FoodFacts for Retailers

For Food Producers

  • Build Scope 3 reporting from activity-based data instead of spend-based emission factors.
  • Identify hotspots across ingredients, suppliers, and processes to prioritize climate action.
  • Simulate recipe, packaging, and sourcing changes to reduce emissions.
  • Support SBTi target setting and track progress, including FLAG.
  • Keep emissions data accurate, transparent, and continuously updated.
More about FoodFacts for Producers

Our methodology : Science-based, transparent and auditable

Trust in sustainability data starts with transparency, methodological rigor, and secure data handling. Every FoodFacts calculation is fully traceable, auditable, and documented, supported by third-party data sources, and available with a complete calculation breakdown.

Standards-aligned methodology

Our methodology is aligned with internationally recognized standards, including ISO 14040, ISO 14044 and ISO 14067, the GHG Protocol Product Standard, SBTi FLAG guidance, and the Swedish industry-wide methodology.

Full calculation transparency

Beyond standards compliance, FoodFacts provides full visibility into assumptions, emission factors, and calculation logic behind every result, ensuring end-to-end transparency from input data to final output.

Built on trusted data

FoodFacts uses scientifically robust databases, industry-specific datasets such as Agri-footprint® and SAFAD, and supplier-specific data where available to ensure accurate, transparent, and consistent carbon footprint data.

Enterprise-grade security

All data is managed with enterprise-grade security, including encryption in transit and at rest, EU-based hosting, and a controlled multi-tenant architecture.

Audit-ready by design

Calculations are structured to be audit-ready by design, with documented assumptions and version history supporting internal review, external verification, and compliance reporting.

With FoodFacts as a partner, we can continuously improve the quality, coverage, and usability of our product sustainability data and Sustainability Declaration across our assortment.

By enabling suppliers to contribute company-specific data and streamlining data updates, we can increase the accuracy of our calculations and provide our teams with better sustainability insights to support everyday decisions.

Mattis Bergquist

Former Head of Sustainability, Coop Sweden

Coop
Mattis Bergquist: Former Head of Sustainability, Coop Sweden
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FAQ : Frequently asked questions

What is Scope 3 reporting?

Scope 3 reporting covers all indirect greenhouse gas emissions across a company’s value chain, including purchased goods, ingredients, packaging, transport, and product use. It is a key part of corporate climate reporting frameworks.

How is Scope 3 different from PCF calculations?

Scope 3 reporting measures greenhouse gas emissions across a company's entire value chain, while Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) measure the emissions associated with an individual product.

Rather than being separate approaches, they complement each other. PCFs provide the product-level data that can significantly improve the accuracy of Scope 3 reporting by replacing generic estimates with product-specific emissions data.

Compared with traditional carbon accounting methods, such as spend-based calculations, PCFs offer a much more granular view of emissions at the product, ingredient, and supplier level. This enables more accurate reporting, hotspot identification, and better-informed reduction strategies.

PCFs are particularly valuable for calculating emissions from Scope 3 Category 3.1 (Purchased Goods and Services) and can also support calculations for Category 3.4 (Upstream Transportation and Distribution) and Category 3.12 (End-of-Life Treatment of Sold Products).

This level of detail is especially important for food companies, where Scope 3 emissions typically represent the largest share of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Can FoodFacts data be used for CSRD compliance?

Yes. FoodFacts supports CSRD compliance by enabling traceable, product-level emissions data that can be used to support Scope 3 disclosures and sustainability reporting requirements.

How do you ensure auditability?

All FoodFacts calculations are fully traceable and based on documented methodologies aligned with internationally recognized standards. Each PCF and Scope 3 dataset can be traced back to the underlying data sources, emission factors, calculation methods, and assumptions used.

To support audit and assurance processes, FoodFacts can provide dedicated auditor access to review the relevant calculation details, data inputs, and methodology applied for your company's products and emissions data.

Can supplier data be integrated?

Yes. Supplier-specific data can be integrated for ingredients, packaging, transport and manufacturing inputs such as energy use and electricity mix. This improves accuracy and reduces reliance on secondary data.

How often is Scope 3 data updated?

Scope 3 reporting is typically performed on an annual basis, but the underlying product-level emissions data can be updated continuously as new product, supplier, and activity data becomes available.

FoodFacts PCFs are updated on an ongoing basis, ensuring that companies can work with the latest available emission factors and product information when preparing Scope 3 calculations and tracking progress over time.