In a major step towards transforming the environmental credentials of the food sector, the non-profit organisation Foundation Earth has been integrated into EIT Food, the world’s largest food innovation community. EIT Food is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
The integration of Foundation Earth into EIT Food will provide the expertise needed for important advocacy work to develop internationally-recognised standards surrounding the use of data to assess the environmental impact of food.
The International Alliance for Food Impact Data will have the mandate of developing internationally adopted and accepted standards for the environmental scoring for food. The Alliance will initially consider the EU policy landscape, in the recognition that any future standards mandated by the EU will likely be of the highest level, ensuring that companies and supply chains can apply one standard for compliance across multiple geographies.
Foundation Earth launched in 2021 to develop a system for the environmental scoring labelling of food and drink products – and has won support for its work from a coalition of leading producers, scientists, campaigners, charities, technology partners and politicians who share the Foundation’s vision for a more environmentally-friendly food system.
Environmental impact data is key to transforming food systems. It can be used to enable informed decision-making across the value chain, for environmental and sustainability reporting, and in the development of Front of Pack labelling for consumers. A growing number of different methodologies and labels are in use globally, but they all adhere to different standards, meaning they aren’t comparable and it is difficult for policy-makers, companies and consumers to assess the actual environmental impact of different food products. There has also been a lack of coordination across the EU and no management by an EU-level organisation, a requisite recently set out by the EU Green Claims Directive.
In order for the food industry to meet its net-zero commitments, the complex challenge of environmental data, scoring and governance must be addressed.
The integration of Foundation Earth into EIT Food is significant step in the development of the Alliance which will seek to work with industry, policymakers and consultancies to ensure the delivery of large-scale impact in the sector.
“Environmental data is a key lever of change for food systems transformation. We are absolutely delighted to integrate the knowledge and capacity of Foundation Earth into EIT Food, which will enable us to take strides towards our shared mission of transforming the food system with credibly collected, measured and evaluated impact data. This will form the basis for decision-making across the food and drink industry, policy, future proofing innovation in our sector and enabling us to reduce the environmental impact of the entire food system.
“EIT Food has been working closely with Foundation Earth since its inception and we are excited to accelerate the impact we can have across the continent by building a fresh Alliance that delivers clear standards and addresses confusion that is currently hampering the environmental scoring of food and drink.”
“Over the last three years, Foundation Earth has led the European-wide drive towards the environmental scoring of food and drink products. Our work now provides the building blocks for providing consumers with the information they need to make more environmentally-friendly buying choices and food producers with the credible information they need to innovate in a more sustainable way.
“This was the vision set out by our founder – the late food entrepreneur Denis Lynn – and for which Foundation Earth has been able to advance under the leadership of our Chief Executive Cliona Howie. EIT Food will inherit a sound body of scientific work, a coalition of the leading political, industry and scientific figures in the field and a network of leading technology partners who stand ready to accelerate Foundation Earth’s founding mission. I look forward to seeing EIT Food inject fresh resource and influence over this issue in the years to come – and would like to place on record my thanks to Cliona Howie for the wonderful job she has done since 2021 in getting us to this stage.”
Foundation Earth’s Chief Executive Cliona Howie will now become the Director of Data Impact Systems at EIT Food, with responsibility for the International Alliance for Food Impact Data. She commented:
“Joining forces with EIT Food will foster wider collaboration across all those fragmented initiatives that are individually working on the environmental foot-printing of food and drink products. Those efforts are currently constrained by limited resources, which has slowed progress towards a single European-wide system.
“This new Alliance will help put an end to unnecessary competition and enable us to leverage a new platform to convene a real solution with a clear roadmap, in the public service. Our focus will be on driving large scale impact that works across the whole food system and transforming the environmental credentials of the continent’s food and drink industry.”
This new International Alliance for Food Impact Data, convened by EIT Food, will inherit many of the critical building blocks that have been put in place by Foundation Earth since 2021.
The coming together of EIT Food and Foundation Earth now provides a vehicle to operationalise the vision of a coordinated, harmonised, single standard for the environmental scoring of food and drink that serves as a public instrument across Europe and beyond.
