Abel & Cole, an organic e-commerce store based in the UK, is showing its commitment to environmental transparency by scoring over 80 fresh food products – the first business to label such high volumes with Foundation Earth. Our ECO IMPACT scores are now displayed on their online shop, acting as a powerful tool to communicate about their sustainability efforts and build trust with customers.
Embarking on this ecolabelling journey is one step further towards Abel & Cole’s mission to provide sustainable food options that help the planet. Undertaking environmental impact assessments on their products not only increases transparency with consumers, but is helping the company identify where improvements can be made along the supply chain.
“We are uncovering intelligence linked to various stages along the value chain,” says Stefanie Sahmel, Head of Sustainability at Abel & Cole. “Would our impact be different if we switch from single use to secondary use packaging? Should we incentivise farmers to switch to reusable crates? All these elements add up when calculating the environmental cost of a product.”
Some of the insights from the Life Cycle Assessment showed, for example, that their avocados from Peru are entirely rain-fed, and that their main mushroom farm generates all of its own power requirements with renewable energy.
For Abel & Cole, it’s also about much more than just innovating within their own business: switching up processes to be more sustainable can inspire entire industries and communities to make environmentally conscious choices.
“The information we uncover and the changes we make to do better can help build a movement: a switch in one of our farmer’s processes might be emulated by others, and we could then see patterns emerging across an entire region, generating even more impact,” adds Stefanie.
This is where we can see the greater value of ecolabelling emerging, acting as means to build positive change in our food systems.
“It’s fantastic to see businesses like Abel & Cole going beyond to show tangible data behind their sustainability initiatives. Scoring such large amounts of products provides their consumers with a wider view of their environmental impact and allows for more product-to-product comparison,” says Greta Delfino, Sustainability Analyst at Foundation Earth.
See the full range of Abel & Cole products scored with Foundation Earth here: https://www.foundation-earth.org/products/?brand=abel-cole
Article photo provided by Abel & Cole.
Related posts:
New partnership with the German Institute of Food Technologies (DIL)
A year of Foundation Earth ecolabelling: 5 things we have learned
Automation for food ecolabelling: Foundation Earth teams up with Sustained
Building an expert task force to develop a harmonised food ecolabel
DSM joins Foundation Earth to help measure the environmental impact of animal protein products
Coca-Cola in Europe joins Foundation Earth to assess the environmental impact of a selection of products
