Food and beverage manufacturers face growing demand from retailers, brand owners and regulators for verified environmental data across their supply chains, from farm to shelf.
Scope 3 and green claims are converging
Food and beverage manufacturing sits at the intersection of two major trends. Retailers and large brand owners are under pressure to disclose and reduce their Scope 3 emissions, which means demanding product-level carbon data from their suppliers. Simultaneously, the EU Green Claims Directive is tightening the rules around environmental marketing, requiring that claims like “sustainable”, “low carbon”, “climate-friendly” or “responsibly sourced” be substantiated with verified lifecycle data. Manufacturers that cannot provide this data risk losing listings, failing supplier assessments, and falling foul of green claims enforcement.
Agriculture-dominated impacts, complex supply chains
For most food and beverage products, the dominant environmental impacts occur at the agricultural stage, before the product reaches the factory gate. This makes food LCA more complex than manufacturing-sector studies, requiring robust agricultural data, careful treatment of land use change and biogenic carbon, and an understanding of how packaging, transport and retail energy interact with the upstream impact profile. Getting this right requires sector-specific expertise, not a generic LCA approach.
Scope 3 supplier data
Major UK and EU retailers are incorporating product carbon footprint data into supplier scorecards. Manufacturers supplying Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Lidl and others are increasingly expected to provide verified product-level carbon data as part of supplier compliance programmes.
EU Green Claims Directive
Food and beverage is one of the sectors most exposed to green claims enforcement. Claims about carbon footprint, sustainability, or environmental benefit need to be backed by ISO 14040/44 compliant LCA data to be defensible under the new Directive.
Category rules for food
Product Category Rules for food and beverage EPDs are now available for major product categories, enabling manufacturers to produce verified third-party assessed declarations that satisfy both retailer and regulatory requirements.
| Impact Category | Conventional dairy (per kg) | Oat-based alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Climate change (kg CO₂eq) | 3.2 | 0.9 |
| Land use (m² year) | 8.9 | 0.8 |
| Water use (m³) | 0.628 | 0.048 |
| Eutrophication (g PO₄eq) | 10.7 | 2.3 |
Figures are illustrative and for explanatory purposes only.
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