Agri-footprint
Advancing sustainability in the agri-food sector requires accurate and clear information. Blonk developed the Agri-footprint database to provide a thorough and consistent life cycle inventory (LCI) database for the agriculture and food sector. The database is widely used and implemented by the food industry, LCA community, scientific community and governments worldwide.
Agri-footprint covers data on agricultural products: feed, food and biomass. The aim of the database is to facilitate transparency and a more rapid transformation to sustainable food supply chains. It can help to speed up progress towards sustainability in various ways.
The database in perspective
Since its release in 2014, Agri-footprint has been used by various organisations for many interesting applications, from labelling schemes to LCA studies to product design tools. The database contains approximately 4000 products and processes. Over the last years Agri-footprint is widely accepted by the food industry, LCA community, scientific community and governments worldwide and has been critically reviewed.
Agri-footprint is widely used to conduct carbon footprints, full Life Cycle Assessments, and hot-spot analyses. Many processes are modelled aligned with the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) set up by the European Commission.
Available in various formats
The database is available in various formats, such as Excel, CSV, ILCD.
Transparent
Background documentation publicly available and an up to date page on known bugs and issues
Regularly updated
We aim to update the database yearly, based on new available data from databases, scientific publications and the industry.
The consistent LCI database
With the first version of Agri-footprint published in 2014, over the past years the database has been developed further, continuously improving the data quality as well as increasing the coverage of products and processes. The basis of Agri-footprint is built upon statistics, scientific literature and our Blonk expert modelling. This makes it possible to provide scientists, consultants, product managers or any other professional with a reliable, consistent, high quality database.
The database is developed to work with the LCA method ReCiPe. This method is available both in openLCA and SimaPro. Three allocation options can be applied: mass, energy and economic allocation.
Branded data add-ons
Agri-footprint branded data add-ons are company- or brand specific life cycle impact data, that can be disclosed through our Agri-footprint channels. Disclosing environmental data can have many benefits and can foster sustainable development in the sector.
Disclosure of brand-specific data allows users to see the environmental impacts of alternatives compared to those of the average product. With the default data of Agri-footprint based on statistics, literature and consistent modelling, a branded data add-on can be benchmarked against its average equivalent. Furthermore, for companies disclosure of brand-specific data as an add-on to Agri-footprint can be an interesting chance to become attached to the recognized and highly valued Agri-footprint brand, while making your data visible and sharing it with crucial stakeholders.
Life Cycle Assessment software
SimaPro
SimaPro is an Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software package and has been developed by PRé Sustainability. In order to use SimaPro a licence is needed, which includes various databases, comprising Agri-footprint. This means Agri-footprint is available for free in the latest SimaPro version.
openLCA
openLCA is a freely available open source software for life cycle assessments and related life cycle analyses. It has been started by GreenDelta.
Agri-footprint is available in openLCA as a for purchase database. On openLCA Nexus, an online repository for LCA data, you can find more information on how to purchase Agri-footprint.
Agri-footprint in Excel
The calculated environmental impacts of all products and processes in Agri-footprint are also directly accessible in Excel format. Calculated using ReCiPe 2016 midpoint (H) and including all process descriptions.
Flexible use case with multiple licensing options available.
License options
- Agri-footprint - Academic & Limited Commercial Use
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Agri-footprint - Commercial License
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Integration of Agri-footprint in Commercial Tool
Excel - Academic & Limited Commercial Use
Available in the following versions:
- Economic, mass and energy allocation: €800 (ex VAT)
- Economic allocation only: €700 (ex VAT)
This license is for 1 user and allows academic use and use for a maximum of 3 commercial projects.
Excel - Commercial License
Available in the following versions:
- Three allocation options: Economic, mass and energy allocation
- One allocation option: Economic allocation only
This license is company-wide for all employees. It allows commercial use of the database, also including integrating the data into an internal tool that you use to generate client reports. The data cannot be shared with people outside your organization.
Prices are available on request.
Integration into commercial tool or solution
Would you like to integrate the Agri-footprint database in a (software) tool or platform that you are exploiting commercially? Get in touch with us so we can discuss the best solutions for your project.
Methodology documents
The methodology report of Agri-footprint contains background information on the methodology, calculation rules and data that are used for the development of the data published in Agri-footprint.
The background report is split in two documents.
- Part 1 describes the overall methodology and basic principles like allocation, system boundaries, reviews and limitations of Agri-footprint 5.0;
- Part 2 describes the data that is used to model the processes of Agri-footprint 5.0.
Methodology reports of previous versions of Agri-footprint are available on request.
Products in Agri-footprint
Agri-footprint contains inventories of food, feed and beverage related ingredients.
In total the LCA database contains almost 4,000 products and processes, most country specific. Some examples:
- Fertilizer industry: Calcium ammonium nitrate, Ureum, Di ammonium phosphate, NPK fertilizers
- Vegetable Oil and Protein meal industry: Soybean oil, coconut oil, sunflower oil, palm oil
- Sugar industry: Beet sugar, Cane sugar
- Starch industry: Maize starch, flour, potato starch, tapioca
- Dairy industry: Milk, cream, milk powder
- Meat industry: Beef, veal, broilers, pork
Bugs and issues
We are convinced that transparency is essential in the development of sustainable agri-food value chains. This is why we want to be open about all currently known bugs and issues in Agri-footprint 5.0, including the solution we envision.
Did you find a bug? Please report it to us.
FAQ
Do you have any other question about Agri-footprint? For example about its availability, how is dealt with uncertainty, carbon sequestration, land use change or data quality?
Please take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions section.
related to agri-footprint
LUC Impact
Deforestation is one of the major issues facing the global agriculture production system, with as much 8% of global CO2 emissions being attributable to land use change. A well-known example is deforestation for the cultivation of crops such as soybean and oil palm.
A big challenge for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) researchers is to translate this impact of land use change to specific crops from specific countries while little primary data is available. Our ‘LUC Impact Tool’ is specifically designed to address this challenge.
LUC Impact is an Excel tool which provides a predefined way of calculating GHG emissions from LUC.
Questions about Agri-footprint?
Get in touch
Meike van de Wouw
If you'd like more information on Agri-footprint and it's uses, or if you are interested in a licence for more users or want to include Agri-footprint data in your own tool, please contact Meike.