Lantmännen began to climate declare its chicken in 2007, to provide consumers with information on the climate impact of chicken. The life cycle analysis that was then made showed that chicken has a lower carbon footprint than other types of meat. But the climate declaration was not solely developed to inform consumers.
- We also want to contribute with knowledge concerning these issues, and to obtain a basis for our improvement efforts throughout the production chain. Calculations and climate declarations are reviewed by a third party, IVL (the Swedish Environmental Research Institute),” says Claes Johansson, Head of Sustainable Development at Lantmännen.
The work with sustainability means continuous improvement efforts. Therefore, it was decided early on that the revisions will be made every three years, as new facts constantly emerge in the climate field. The standards used in the analysis are ISO standards.
- For us who carry out life cycle assessments of food, there is currently no established methodology for calculating the indirect emissions of greenhouse gasses from changed land use. Despite these uncertainties, life cycle assessments of food are valuable tools to help contribute with more knowledge to the work to reduce environmental impact,” says Thomas Angervall, Head of Environment and Sustainable Production at SIK, the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology.
Facts:
In view of Swedish Radio’s features in today’s ‘Ekot’ (March 5, 2010) on climate declarations of chicken, Lantmännen would like to make some clarifications.
- Lantmännen has today been criticized for “knowingly withholding information about the environmental impact of deforestation in Kronfågel’s climate declarations.” This is not true. It is not Lantmännen that chooses what to include in the climate declaration. What aspects are to be included is decided according to ISO, and in the ISO standard that was used in 2007, deforestation effects were not included. Lantmännen welcomes that the deforestation effect will be included in the new ISO standard that is under development.
- In the 2007 life cycle analysis of our chicken, we used the ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. In current revisions, we continue to follow the current ISO standard.
- At a rough estimate, with new data concerning soy related to deforestation effects, the result would mean an estimated change from 1.7 kg CO2/kg chicken to 2.4, which is in line with the results of SIK’s report from 2009. If the standard was to include a total deforestation effect, all kinds of meat would be affected.