Scope 3 Emissions Management Made Easier for Food and Beverage Companies by Savvy Suppliers

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 18, 2024 / TriplePundit

By 3p Editors

Originally published by TriplePundit

Gathering Scope 3 emissions data from suppliers isn't easy for food and beverage companies, but new remote sensing and analytics technology can help.

Bunge, one of the oldest and biggest grain agribusinesses in the world, is using these systems in collaboration with the agriculture technology innovator Indigo Ag - resulting in a more efficient, streamlined process that takes a full ecosystem approach to assembling key supplier data from a variety of sources.

The new Scope 3 opportunity for food and beverage companies

The partnership with Indigo Ag grew out of Bunge's realization that grain processors can drive the pace of food systems decarbonization by leveraging their pivotal role in the supply chain.

"We were getting inquiries from customers that wanted us to bring solutions to the table," said Gregg Christensen, Bunge's head of corn milling. "We were getting many different requests, but they all wanted the same outcome. It was time to streamline a program, led by us, to avoid duplication."

Chris Malone, Indigo Ag's VP of market opportunities, emphasizes the importance of agribusinesses like Bunge in a full ecosystem approach to decarbonizing the agricultural supply chain.

"The origin of this project with Bunge North American Milling Group was in looking back at the way food supply chains have been decarbonized in past years," Malone said. "Over the past few years, a large CPG would orchestrate a program, bring it all the way down to farmers, and then potentially connect grain processors in the middle. That can be complicated, and it's not realistic or efficient for every food company to be able to have that capability. Partnering directly with grain processors opens up a new way to decarbonize the food supply chain."

The need for food and beverage companies to move the needle on Scope 3 emissions from their supply chains is clear, especially regarding emissions from agriculture. The rise of industrial-scale agriculture has enabled global food production to keep pace in an era of rapid population growth. However, as a result agriculture is now the second-largest source of greenhouse gases in the world. It accounts for up to 28 percent of all global emissions, according to the World Bank.