Our footprint
Climate change is one of the five major causes of the destruction of biodiversity. Nearly 20% of habitats and 12% of species of interest in Europe are threatened by climate change1. In line with its mission to preserve biodiversity, Ecotone has set ambitious impact reduction targets and initiatives throughout its value chain to reduce its footprint.
Ecotone has set up a low-carbon strategy in 3 steps:
1 – Since 2017, we have been measuring annually CO2 emissions for all Ecotone’s activities on:
- Scope 1 = Direct emissions: own gas consumption mainly (buildings + factories)
- Scope 2 = Indirect emission related to electricity purchase for Ecotone’s activities
- Scope 3 = All our indirect emissions (raw materials production, upstream and downstream transport, packaging…)
[1] Source: French Ministry for the Ecological Transition
The most important part of our CO2 emission is in scope 3 and mainly due to the impact of raw materials production.
Our scope 2 is near 0 thanks to 95% of the electricity consumed by Ecotone was from renewable sources.
2 – Since 2019, Ecotone is part of a trajectory to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions according to the Paris Agreement, whose objective is to keep global warming under 1.5°C by 2100.
See our targets in the table below.
3 – To achieve these objectives, Ecotone has developed an ambitious action plan.
Our action plan
Scope 1 & 2 :
- Use 100% renewable electricity in offices and production sites by 2025,
- Improve energy efficiency and gradually replace gas with green biogas in production sites (100% biogas by 2030).
Scope 3 :
- Work jointly with the various stakeholders on agricultural practices,
- Work on transportation of goods and packaging,
- and engage our supply chain partners in a carbon strategy.
Details and figures
Our results and targets:
2022 results on Scope 1,2,3:
| 2017 | 2021 | 2022 (new methodology) | 2022 (same methodology as 2021) | Target | Key achievements / comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scope 1,2 | 7 693 tonnes of CO2e | 9 020 tonnes of CO2e | 11 011 tonnes of CO2e | 9 391 tonnes of CO2e | – 55% (absolute) CO2e by 2030 versus 2017 | 95% renewable electricity at Ecotone |
| Scope 3 | 0,462 tonnes of CO2e/K€ | 0,414 tonnes of CO2e/K€ | 0,591 tonnes of CO2e / K€ | 0,433 tonnes of CO2e / K€ | -43% (intensity) CO2e/K€ on agricultural raw materials, transport and packaging by 2030 versus 2017 | Measure of our own emission factors on 3 additional raw material: cacao, almond, coffee Optimisation of downstream and upstream transportation |
| 13% PTO of third part suppliers engaged | Engage 20% (PTO) of our third part suppliers in a carbon strategy | CO2 requirements integrated in supplier’s partnership contract |
What changed in 2022
We advocate for biodiversity, but we don’t forget about greenhouse gases either, as they are one of the major contributors to biodiversity erosion! As such, we have been measuring our emissions every year for the past 10 years. Here’s how we do it.
Firstly, in the spirit of transparency and continuous improvement, we measure and communicate our figures across the 3 scopes. Many companies do not yet report on Scope 3, which is generally the largest emitter of greenhouse gases…
For reference, here’s what “Scope 1, 2, 3” means:
- Scope 1: our direct emissions (related to our own consumption, mainly offices and factories)
- Scope 2: all our indirect emissions (due to the purchase of electricity necessary for our activities)
- Scope 3: all our other indirect emissions (such as the production of raw materials, transport of goods upstream and downstream, and packaging)
Moreover, to continuously improve and identify solutions more accurately, we have made significant changes to enhance our carbon footprint measurement in 2022.
- We have implemented automation of data collection through a dedicated reporting tool, enabling us to refine analysis and monitoring (this may seem like an obvious action, but implementing such a tool is a real challenge!)
- We have updated our emission factors (an emission factor is “transforming a physical activity data into a quantity of greenhouse gas emissions” – (source: Ademe).
- We have also integrated our own emission factors for coffee, cocoa, oats, and almonds, thanks to a meticulous data collection effort carried out internally.
- We have taken into account the impact of the production of our products by our suppliers.
- We have refined our methodology for calculating the impact of our raw materials, which represents 80% of our emissions (a common order of magnitude in the agri-food sector).
Ultimately, although this has led to an increase in our CO2 emissions on paper, it is simply because we are measuring them more accurately and precisely. Most importantly, we can now say that our measurement scope encompasses all of Ecotone’s activities.
Finally, to evaluate the impact of these changes on the final result, we have recalculated our carbon footprint using the same parameters as in 2021. The results are a stabilization of our carbon footprint thanks to our action plan defined in 2020.
Next step: with our new, more accurate calculation method, we will recalculate our objectives in line with the Science-Based Targets (SBT) framework and update our reduction objectives accordingly in line with the Paris Accords.
The next certification will take place in 2022. In the meantime we are actively working on improving our positive impact on the different B Corp dimensions (governance, workers, environment, community, customers).
