Environment Agency to standardise performance metrics in food and drink sector

The Environment Agency has launched a project to establish standardised metrics to measure environmental performance in the food and drink sector. The project, in partnership with the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Northern Ireland Environment Agency, WRAP and the British Standards Institute, aims to help businesses and the public understand the environmental performance of companies in key areas such as greenhouse gas reduction and resource efficiency, while minimising the opportunity for greenwashing. It is also hoped that it will incentivise companies toward greener manufacturing processes and business operations helping to tackle climate change.

Project lead Becca Tremain said:

“One of the big challenges for food businesses trying to mitigate climate change is how to communicate their environmental performance that goes beyond legal compliance effectively and efficiently. Different food businesses have developed and adopted various environmental metrics and it can be time consuming for food businesses to collect data from different supplier systems.”