Truvia, a global producer of calorie-free sweeteners, won carbon footprint certification last month within two years of initiating its sustainability program in 2011.
The certification arm of the UK-based Carbon Trust measured Truvia's total greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of the supply chain, including cultivation, processing, packaging, transport and use and disposal, finding the company had reduced the carbon dioxide-equivalent per metric ton of “sweet” by 35 percent due to improvements made in the leaf-extraction process.
Truvia worked with the Carbon Trust to certify its carbon footprint and verify its waste and water footprints throughout its supply chain. The certified metrics are part of an action plan to manage the carbon footprint of the Truvia stevia leaf extract in order to become carbon neutral by 2020.
Under the certification, Truvia has signed up to use Carbon Trust’s carbon reduction label in the future, which will be displayed in the UK, U.S., Mexico, Spain, France and Italy.
In 2010, Truvia made several sustainability pledges, including reducing its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2015 and become carbon neutral by 2020. It also promised to make sure all process water is returned to its source with the same quality it was taken and reduce net depletion by 25 percent by 2020. The company plans to reduce waste by 50 percent across its supply chain by 2015 in efforts to become zero waste by 2020.
The Carbon Trust and Credit360 joined together last year to launch a series of software solutions designed to allow companies to manage carbon emissions across the value chain.
@Bart_King is a freelance writer and communications consultant. @mikehower contributed.
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Bart King is the founder and principal at New Growth Communications. He specializes in helping sustainability leaders develop thought leadership content and strategy
Published Feb 11, 2013 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET