The French Eco-Score for food products, calculated at scale.

The Coût Environnemental is France's official environmental score for food products, backed by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition and ADEME. It translates the full environmental impact of a food product across climate, biodiversity, environmental health, and resources into a single score calculated using Life Cycle Assessment methodology. It is calculated via Ecobalyse, the open-source tool developed by the Ministry and ADEME, and is currently voluntary but regulated.

Not yet. The 2021 Climate and Resilience Law set the legal framework for environmental labelling and opened a five-year experimental phase. ADEME and the Ministry finalised the official food method on 13 May 2026, and the experimental phase ended in August 2026 without a decree making the score mandatory for food.

Today, the French Eco-Score for food is voluntary but regulated: any company that displays it must use the official method. Retailers are not waiting. E.Leclerc rolled it out across more than 6,000 private label products in April 2026, so suppliers that already have their scores are ready when buyers ask.

The Coût Environnemental builds on the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology but makes important modifications for the food sector. Most notably, freshwater ecotoxicity is weighted 10x higher than in the EU standard (21.06% of the total weighting, on par with climate change), and four ecosystem service bonus indicators (hedgerows, permanent grassland, plot size, and territorial crop diversity) go beyond standard LCA to capture biodiversity impacts that PEF underestimates. These bonus indicators bring the total to 20, are deducted from the score, and can account for up to 30% of it.

The Coût Environnemental varies by origin, farming method, and processing. French wheat, imported wheat, organic wheat, and conventional wheat each have different profiles. This is why a platform that models ingredient-level variants is essential. Generic tools that apply category averages will produce scores that are both inaccurate and potentially misleading.

Carbon Maps' methodology is fully compliant with Ecobalyse. Carbon Maps contributed directly to the Ecobalyse database in early 2026, providing several hundred food ingredients modeled in French, organic, and default variants, now integrated into the national tool and freely accessible to all. Carbon Maps' calculations are consistent with the national reference methodology, so scores can be shared with retailers and displayed on pack with confidence.

No. The French Eco-Score (Coût Environnemental) is the official government score, built on the Ecobalyse method. The Eco-Score used in apps like Open Food Facts is a private letter grade, now renamed Green-Score. Planet-Score is a private label developed by NGOs and agricultural institutes. Nutri-Score covers nutrition, not environmental impact. The scales are different and cannot be compared directly.

Yes. With Carbon Maps, the recipe, ingredient, origin, and packaging data already collected for product carbon footprints feeds directly into the French Eco-Score calculation. Climate change is one of the 20 indicators, so the work you have done on carbon is the starting point, not a separate project.