Corporate Carbon Footprinting for FMCG - Scope 1, 2, 3

the challenge

For companies in the food industry, building a credible corporate carbon footprint means getting Scope 3 right.

Scope 3 is where your emissions actually live

For food companies, 80–90% of emissions sit in Scope 3 — primarily in purchased goods and agricultural supply chains. A CCF that relies on spend-based estimates for that category is directionally useful at best.

CSRD demands more than a number

Regulatory frameworks now require traceable, auditable emissions data at product and supplier level. A corporate footprint built on category averages won't hold up to external review.

Scope 3.1 is especially too complex for generic tools

Emissions from purchased agricultural goods vary dramatically by origin, farming practice, and processing method. Generic platforms model a commodity; Carbon Maps models your actual supply chain.

You can't decarbonise what you can't trace

Without connecting your corporate footprint to the products and suppliers that drive it, identifying where to act and proving progress remains guesswork.

A mockup of Carbon Maps platform showing the lifecycle of a strawberry yogurt, the composition, and the impact of the packaging, and the emissions per kilo or per unit of yogurt

The Carbon Maps Difference

Depth that generalist platforms can't match.

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Scope 3.1 flows automatically from your product carbon footprints

No manual estimation or double entry — when your PCF data updates, your corporate footprint updates with it.

Aligned with the frameworks your stakeholders already require

Carbon Maps' methodology is aligned with GHG Protocol, SBTi FLAG, and CSRD — so your corporate footprint is ready for external reporting from day one.

Every modelling choice is fully traceable

Every emission factor, data source, and methodology decision is documented and auditable — so your results hold up to scrutiny from regulators, customers, and investors.

Corporate carbon footprint for food companies

One platform. Every emission. Traced to its source.

A mockup of Carbon Maps' platform featuring PEF indicators

Scope 1, 2, and 3 in one place

One dashboard across your entire organisation — connected to the products and suppliers that drive your emissions, not just category-level estimates.

Trace every tonne back to its source

Carbon Maps connects your corporate footprint to the specific products, ingredients, and suppliers that drive it — so you know exactly where to act, and can prove it.

Activity-based Scope 3

Our deep expertise in Product Carbon Footprinting means we model Scope 3 categories from activity data rather than spend proxies, giving you a more granular, defensible corporate footprint.

Reports your stakeholders can trust

Every emission factor, data source, and modelling decision is fully traceable — generating framework-aligned outputs for CSRD, SBTi FLAG, and GHG Protocol on demand.

Frequently Asked Qusetions

Key questions on corporate carbon accounting for food companies.

What is a corporate carbon footprint and what does it include?

A corporate carbon footprint (CCF) measures the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by a company's operations and value chain, across Scope 1 (direct emissions), Scope 2 (purchased energy), and Scope 3 (indirect emissions from suppliers, ingredients, logistics, and product use). For food companies, Scope 3 typically accounts for 80-90% of total emissions, making it the most critical and complex category to measure.

Why is Scope 3 so difficult to measure for food and agri-food companies?

Unlike other industries, food supply chains involve agricultural raw materials whose emissions vary significantly depending on origin, farming practice, animal feed, land use change, and processing method. Spend-based estimation — the default approach for most generic carbon tools — cannot capture these differences. Accurate Scope 3 measurement in food requires activity-based modeling at ingredient level, which is what Carbon Maps is built to do.

What does CSRD mean for corporate carbon reporting in the food industry?

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires large EU companies to disclose detailed Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions data under the ESRS E1 standard, starting from FY2024 for the largest companies. For food businesses, this means moving beyond category-level estimates to product- and supplier-level data that is traceable, auditable, and aligned with GHG Protocol and SBTi FLAG methodology.

What is the difference between a corporate carbon footprint and a product carbon footprint?

A product carbon footprint (PCF) measures the emissions associated with a single product across its lifecycle, from raw ingredient to end consumer. A corporate carbon footprint aggregates emissions across an entire organisation. The two are closely linked: in Carbon Maps, Scope 3.1 (purchased goods and services) flows automatically from product-level data into the corporate footprint, eliminating manual estimation and ensuring consistency between the two.

How do SBTi FLAG targets affect carbon accounting for food companies?

SBTi's Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) guidance requires food companies with significant land-based emissions to set separate reduction targets for their agricultural supply chain. This means Scope 3.1 emissions, particularly those from livestock, land use change, and crop production, need to be measured and reported with a FLAG split. Carbon Maps generates this split automatically, so food companies can set and track FLAG-aligned targets without additional manual calculation.