Poultry processor Avara Foods is extending its carbon footprint reporting to encompass more of its agricultural supply chain.
Having established a 2021 farm carbon footprint from a sample of farms last year, the extension is the next step in its commitment to build a complete footprint for their entire farming base by 2025.
As part of Avara’s work to complete a full and detailed report on scope three emissions, it identified that agriculture accounted for 23% of emissions. This started with a sample group of farms, covering 30% of Avara’s chicken farming base. Avara said that this year’s footprinting exercise will double that number, building towards its 2025 target, which is to have carbon footprint reporting in place for every farm in their supply chain.
Avara has reduced its scope one and two emissions by 24% and scope three by 17% since 2019.
Sustainability director Andrew Brodie, commented: “Expanding our footprinting exercise to 60% of chicken farms is a really positive and vitally important next step on our ongoing journey to NetZero. For us to reduce our overall footprint, it’s essential that we understand what it is and where it occurs, and you can only achieve this by measuring it. Data has always been at the heart of our environmental reduction plans and this project will deliver accurate, robust and accessible information on the profile of our farms scope three emissions, helping us and our suppliers drive meaningful change together”.
David Neilson, agricultural director at Avara, added: “A partnership approach with our suppliers and customers is the key to driving change in our scope three emissions, so it’s been really pleasing to see our farmers backing this initiative and working closely alongside us to build a clearer picture of our wider footprint”.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
