HowGood, a sustainability intelligence platform, has debuted an expanded carbon accounting solution targeting environment, social, and governance reporting and carbon reduction for the food industry.
Dubbed the Latis platform, which is already used by six of the 10 largest food corporations, it will now provide enterprise food companies with their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The platform will leverage HowGood’s granular product carbon footprinting data. HowGood’s platform also boasts the world's largest ingredient and product sustainability database.
Scopes 1 and 2, which cover direct greenhouse emissions that occur from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization, and indirect GHG emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat, or cooling, respectively, will be available free to all users.
The addition to the platform comes as ESG reporting is becoming more critical to companies and investors. New reporting standards are also in the works worldwide, meaning companies will have to shape up their reporting related to sustainability disclosures soon. Already, few investors believe ESG reports are completely accurate, while 45% of U.S. companies also worry they may be participating in greenwashing, according to recent studies.
The food industry is facing the same impending regulations and pressures around ESG reporting, according to HowGood.
“Companies across the food industry are under intense pressure to not only report on their total footprint, but to be able to demonstrate immediate progress toward reduction for both direct and indirect emissions,” Nina DePalma, head of product at HowGood, said in a press release. “Historically, corporate carbon accounting has not benefited from the immense granularity and accuracy that product-level carbon footprinting brings to the table, creating silos of data that make it difficult for companies to demonstrate the impacts of the sustainability initiatives they're undertaking.”
The carbon accounting platform will draw on 90,000 agricultural emission factors to offer its users emissions reports, as well as forecast and abatement strategies and audit-ready data with granular accounting. The Latis platform already draws on 600 accredited data sources to assess the social and environmental impact of more than 33,000 ingredients.
