EIT Food formed a new alliance with Foundation Earth to develop and test internationally accepted standards for the environmental impact data of food. The Alliance will initially consider the EU policy landscape.

The International Alliance for Food Impact Data addresses the lack of standards and coordination between stakeholders at an EU and international level, which has hampered the roll-out of environmental scoring standards for food.

On this occasion, the non-profit organization 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.

Foundation Earth launched in 2021 to develop a system for the environmental scoring labeling 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.

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 organization, 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, EIT Food underlines.

“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 toward 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,” said Richard Zaltzman, Chief Executive Officer, EIT Food.

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 footprinting 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.”

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