Barry Callebaut has announced its goal to become “forest positive” by 2025 as part of its Forever Chocolate commitment.
The company has to develop a greater understanding of where deforestation is at risk of occurring in its supply chain.
For cocoa, the Swiss chocolate manufacturer works in close collaboration with environmental sustainability consultancy, Quantis, to develop a carbon footprinting assessment to evaluate land-use change (LUC) and deforestation driven by cocoa farming.
Through the incorporation of GPS, satellite imagery, and farm-level data, this latest assessment enables Barry Callebaut to understand each farm’s contribution or cooperative that its source from direct LUC emissions.
At Quantis, we’re proud of developing this cutting-edge carbon footprinting assessment with Barry Callebaut to evaluate the impacts of cocoa farming on land-use change and deforestation. It provides a more realistic snapshot of what is happening on the ground, paving the way for more precise footprints, reduction strategies and action plans to tackle land-use change emissions in the cocoa supply chain effectively. We hope this will inspire the wider industry to action and accelerate sustainable transformation
Michele Zollinger, Natural Capital Solutions Lead at Quantis
By having a more comprehensive understanding of where deforestation is at risk of occurring, the company can also set a better link between forest protection activities and carbon accounting at the farm level.
Using satellite data also will benefit the company to analyse deforestation events on the ground in greater detail. This provides it with the opportunity to engage with cocoa farming communities on adopting natural resource management and avoid activities such as land-clearing for agriculture, which can result in deforestation.
The new assessment development will also help customers calculate their carbon impact more accurately and enable Barry Callebaut to provide carbon-neutral chocolate.
Customers can input recipes into their carbon footprint calculator, get a clear view of their chocolate’s impact, and learn more about the methodology behind the numbers.
