Stonyfield Farm (Stonyfield) is a popular organic yogurt maker found in many supermarkets. Stonyfield is know for it’s commitment to educating consumers on organic ingredients and the environment. Their website is informative and they are quite transparent on their farming practices.
The Whole Carbon Footprint
In the past, companies have prided themselves on measuring the carbon footprint of only a small portion of the supply chain. Conversely, Stonyfield has measured the full carbon footprint of over 150 of their 200 products. What is impressive is that they have considered the whole product lifecycle from raw materials to disposal.
So how do they do it? Stonyfield uses a special software created by SAP to track the real time GHG emissions produced by each process of the lifecycle.
When an order is placed for production, the software immediately assigns a carbon footprint to each of the materials. Some processes require people across the supply chain to manually input data into the software.
Stonyfield has found most of their emissions are generated by milk production (52%) followed by manufacturing (13%). To address these issues, Stonyfield has created cross-functional teams to come up with solutions. Nicknamed MAP Teams, these teams have come up with innovative solutions from decreasing farm energy use to alternative fuel sources.
Future Implications
Measuring the GHG emissions for a single product is challenging and requires a lot of time and money. It is rare to see a company in North America invest so heavily in trying to measure the whole carbon footprint of a product. The closest I have seen is probably what Carbon Trust is doing with consumer products in the UK. Working with clients through Climate Smart in Comm 388 has allowed me to realize the interest that small to medium sized businesses have to calculate their full carbon footprints. Hopefully, Stonyfield’s work in carbon management will inspire others to quickly follow suit.
-JN