Industries
Food and agriculture carbon footprint from the farm to your purchase.
In a food product, most of the footprint usually sits in the farming and livestock production of the raw material, not in the price paid. Xain calculates purchased-goods Scope 3 with physical factors by product and origin, not with invoice amounts, which can distort the result.
Hotspots
What weighs most in a food product's footprint?
It usually concentrates in raw material production: crops, livestock, fertilisers, animal feed and land-use change depending on origin.
The raw material
Crops or livestock, depending on origin and production system.
Processing
Your plant’s processes and energy.
Packaging and cold chain
Packaging material and refrigeration.
Transport
From the farm to the plant and from the plant to the customer.
Food companies get the request from retailers, large brands or their own sustainability reports: how much each product emits and how much comes from what they buy. The challenge is that the raw material weighs most and is the hardest to measure.
What happens with the spend-based method?
Multiplying the amount by a sector average makes a more expensive product look more polluting, and it does not tell origin or production system apart. In a Xain pilot of purchased-goods Scope 3 in the food sector, the spend-based method inflated the egg’s footprint nine times compared with the physical calculation. It is a specific case, not a general rule. More in physical versus spend-based factors.
What documentation is needed?
The purchase list with product, quantity and origin, your products’ recipes or bills of materials, packaging, and plant data (energy, refrigeration, waste). With your ERP’s purchase lines you can start with less than 10 minutes of your work.
What does regulation say?
Customers obliged to report under the CSRD or Spain’s Royal Decree 214/2025 ask their suppliers for data. And if you communicate an environmental quality of your product to consumers, unfair-competition law already sanctions generic greenwashing; EmpCo will add rules when Spain transposes it.
Frequently asked questions
What companies usually ask before getting started.
Why does multiplying the amount by a sector average not work?
Because in food, price and footprint are not linked. In a Xain pilot, the spend-based method inflated the egg's footprint nine times compared with the physical calculation. It is a specific case, not a general rule.
Which factor databases are used?
Among others, AGRIBALYSE, from ADEME, plus Xain's own physical library and any primary data the customer provides.
Keep reading
Scope 3 for purchases
Measure purchased-goods Scope 3 (Categories 1 and 2) with physical factors. Xain Insight needs only the ERP spreadsheet: less than 10 minutes.
Physical vs spend factors
Differences between spend-based and physical emission factors: how they are calculated, what errors they cause and when each fits for products and Scope 3.
Calculating Category 1
Guide to calculating Scope 3 Category 1, purchased goods and services: the four GHG Protocol methods, the steps and when each one fits best.
Tell us what you want to measure
One product, a catalogue or your purchases. We reply with the next steps.
Contact Xain