New Carbon Footprinting Project Underway
Image – Cissy Pan
An ambitious new project to establish a standardised approach to measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for one of the country’s leading export industries is about to begin.
Funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Pipfruit NZ Inc., the project will be based on supply-chain-process mapping of the pipfruit industry (focusing on apples). As New Zealand’s third largest horticultural export, pipfruit accounts for 29% of our fresh fruit exports and 13% of total horticulture exports by value. New Zealand pipfruit brands enjoy a high degree of consumer recognition globally and strong preference in the marketplace compared with our competitors.
Project leader Dr Sarah McLaren from Landcare Research says data surveys will be carried out on 60 orchards, 9 packhouses, and 9 coolstores across 3 regions and the results modelled using a Life Cycle Assessment approach. New Zealand pipfruit exports are currently subject to scrutiny from overseas and a British research report on comparative GHG emissions of selected products is expected to be released soon.
Accounting guidelines, enabling the pipfruit industry to measure and report GHG emissions across the supply chain, will be developed and tested.
Dr McLaren says the long-term goal of this research is to ensure the New Zealand horticulture industry can operate in markets with credibility and where necessary using internationally recognised, transparent, and validated GHG footprinting methodologies for the production and supply of products.
While international standards exist for the measurement and reporting of GHG emissions by organisations (e.g. ISO14064), there are currently no agreed standards or guidelines for the measurement of GHG emissions for products.
In Britain, DEFRA/British Standards Institute/Carbon Trust have just published a Publicly Available Specification (PAS 2050) for GHG emissions measurement for products. If adopted by retailers, PAS 2050 could have significant implications for New Zealand’s horticultural exporters in terms of the requirements on producers to measure their products’ GHG emissions footprint across the whole supply chain.
‘This project will enable the pipfruit industry and its growers, packers and shippers to understand the emissions across their entire supply chain. It will also enable the sector to develop a standard approach and suitable tools for ongoing emissions measurement and management. This project will develop information that can then be leveraged to the wider horticultural sector in future work,’ says Dr McLaren.
The project will cover:
- Integrated fruit production (both classical IFP and Apple Futures) and organic apple categories
- Braeburn and Royal Gala varieties
- Dwarf and standard tree sizes
- An initial sample of orchards drawn from the Hawke’s Bay (30), Nelson (24), and Otago (6) regions
- A range of different sizes of industry participant will be engaged with from small orchards to integrated producers
- A sample of 9 packhouses and 9 coolstores from the targeted regions (potential split: 4 Hawke’s Bay; 3 Nelson; 2 Otago)
- The supply chain process mapping is to extend to include the consumption stage in a final market.
The results of the project will be announced at Pipfruit New Zealand’s conference in July.
Sarah McLaren