About SODIAAL

SODIAAL is France’s largest dairy cooperative, uniting 14,000+ member farmers behind household brands like Yoplait, Candia & Entremont. Rooted in French dairy heritage and farmer value, the group combines large-scale production with a strong focus on product quality, supporting its adherents to adopt more sustainable farming practices, and fair value distribution along the supply chain.

The cooperative has clarified its decarbonization trajectory: 30% absolute carbon footprint reduction between 2019 and 2030, a target validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This roadmap guides action across farms, processing, and logistics, including changes in farming practices, renewable energy, and circular packaging efforts.

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The challenge

To contribute to its decarbonization goals, SODIAAL set out to build a robust and scalable framework to calculate and improve the environmental footprint of thousands of dairy products across its portfolio.

Until now, much of its sustainability work had been focused upstream at the farm level with tools designed to assess and improve the environmental performance of dairy farming. While crucial, these initiatives did not extend downstream into the product lifecycle.

The challenge lay in both the scale and the complexity of the task:

• A fragmented data environment, spread across multiple enterprise IT systems, requiring data integration across.
• A diverse portfolio of over 3,700 product references, covering multiple brands, formats, and production sites.

SODIAAL sought a solution that could turn this complex ecosystem into a unified, scalable framework for product-level environmental footprinting and eco-design.

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Carbon Maps approach

To tackle this, SODIAAL partnered with Carbon Maps to launch a pilot project designed to test and validate a new approach for calculating product environmental footprints across the cooperative’s ecosystem. The goal: build a robust methodology that could eventually scale across all business units.

Phase 1: Building the foundation

The collaboration began with a pilot on 60 product references involving 20+ users from Yoplait, Candia, Nutribio, Eurosérum, Bonilait, and Sodiaal Fromages. This initial phase focused on:

• Validating input data from multiple IT systems and assessing its reliability.
• Testing integration workflows with SODIAAL’s information systems.
• Adapting the methodology to the specificities of dairy products (milk emission factors, co-products, packaging).
• Structuring the data model to support future eco-design analysis.

This first step confirmed the feasibility and consistency of the methodology. It also helped establish a shared framework that could be progressively extended to the entire group.

Phase 2: Preparing for scale

Following the positive results of the pilot, SODIAAL decided to extend the collaboration to additional product lines and users. This scale-up phase, currently underway, involves more than 100 users and several thousand product references across all entities, including Sodiaal Union and Bonilait.

The focus today is on progressive deployment:

• Extending the methodology across more brands and categories.
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• Preparing for environmental labeling in line with anticipated French regulation.
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• Customizing LCAs with product-specific data.
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• Ensuring seamless integration within SODIAAL’s IT ecosystem to make results operational.

While the pilot phase has already delivered strong outcomes, the ongoing rollout continues to evolve as the cooperative refines its processes and deepens data integration.

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A robust, dairy-adapted methodology

At the core of the project lies Carbon Maps’ hybrid-by-design LCA engine, capable of operating in any data context—from 0% to 100% real data—while maintaining transparency and traceability.

The methodology, structured according to International Dairy Federation (IDF) criteria and ISO 14044 standards, has been audited by Bureau Veritas and declared compliant with ISO 14040, 14044, and 14067, as well as PEF, Agribalyse/Ecobalyse, GHG Protocol, CSRD, and SBTi FLAG requirements.

By combining standardized references with company-specific data, the approach enables both precision and scalability. Integration of insights from SODIAAL’s upstream tools ensures continuity from farm-level emissions to finished products, connecting the full value chain.

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Early outcomes

The pilot phase provided SODIAAL with a clear proof of concept and a strong foundation to scale from.

Key achievements include:

1. A validated methodology
   The pilot confirmed the reliability and transparency of Carbon Maps’ approach.
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2. Structured, interoperable data
   The collaboration helped define a harmonized data model across SODIAAL’s complex IT systems, paving the way for automation and scalability.
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3. Consistency from farm to finished product
   Integration of upstream agricultural data ensures methodological continuity across the full dairy value chain.
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4. Regulatory alignment
   The framework is designed to meet International and French requirements for environmental labeling and corporate reporting.
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5. Scalability in motion
   Building on the pilot’s success, the methodology is now being progressively extended across product lines and entities, with learnings incorporated along the way.
   
   

Looking ahead

The pilot project has demonstrated the feasibility and value of integrating product environmental footprinting into SODIAAL’s data ecosystem. While the broader deployment is still ongoing, the foundations are now in place for a scalable, scientifically rigorous framework that supports SODIAAL’s decarbonization roadmap and positions the cooperative for future regulatory and market demands.

As SODIAAL continues to expand this work, its collaboration with Carbon Maps remains focused on turning data into actionable insights—helping teams connect environmental performance with product innovation and long-term sustainability strategy.

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