Environment
Open Food Facts is embarked on an effort to access the environmental impact of products. In summary, we need to
- Categorize products in order to be able to use the lifecycle analysis averages that we already have.
- Extract every little bit of information that we can from packagings, including environmental labels and ingredients, both useful to have a better assessment of impact.
- Improve our taxonomy system to be able to decipher it, and add explanations.
- Gather lifecycle analysis data for countries outside of France or find ways to reverse-engineer lifecycle analysis files to tweak the parameters at very large scale
Adding food categories to assess the carbon footprint
In order to be able to apply the lifecycle analysis values, we need to know precisely the category of a product. You can help using various tools on Open Food Facts:
Adding food categories using the app
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Adding food categories using Hunger Games | |
Adding food categories using the mass edit extension
Important note: Even if the product has a category, having a more granular category may be useful, as we don't have lifecycle analysis for overly broad categories. |
See also Eco-Score - Agribalyse coverage
Environmental labels
We need to collect environmental labels.
- We have a logo annotation tool to help you collect labels at large scale.
- You can also validate labels using Hunger Games.
Validation using Hunger Games logos
Please read the guidelines before starting: Guidelines
- EU Organic -
- Max Havelaar -
- AB Bio -
- Dolphin Safe -
- Canada Organic -
- Ohne Gentechnik -
- EG-Öko-Verordnung -
- Bleu Blanc Cœur -
- Le Porc Français -
- Label Rouge -
- Lapin de France -
- Produit en Bretagne -
- RSPO -
- Haute Valeur Environnementale -
- UTZ Certified -
- MSC
Packaging
Infinite annotation
- EU organic (infinite annotation)
- Max Havelaar (infinite annotation)
- AB Bio (infinite annotation)
- Dolphin Safe (infinite annotation)
- Canada Organic (infinite annotation)
- Ohne Gentechnik (infinite annotation)
- Bleu-Blanc-Cœur (infinite annotation)
- Label Rouge (infinite annotation)
- VPF (infinite annotation)
- Lapin de France (infinite annotation)
- UTZ Certified (infinite annotation)
- MSC (infinite annotation)
- ASC (infinite annotation)
- RSPO (infinite annotation)
- HVE (infinite annotation)
- Fabriqué en France (infinite annotation)
- Transformé en France (infinite annotation)
- Origine France (infinite annotation)
- Conditionné en France (infinite annotation)
- Agriculture France (infinite annotation)
- Cuisiné en France (infinite annotation)
- Fruits et Légumes de France (infinite annotation)
- Cultivé en France (infinite annotation)
- Bio équitable en France (infinite annotation)
- Oeufs de France (infinite annotation)
- Pommes de terre de France (infinite annotation)
- Max Havelaar France (infinite annotation)
- Sud de France (infinite annotation)
- Légumes de France (infinite annotation)
- Récolté en France (infinite annotation)
- Agri-Éthique France (infinite annotation)
- Pommes de France (infinite annotation)
- Pondu en France (infinite annotation)
- Fruits de France (infinite annotation)
- Tomates de France (infinite annotation)
- Qualité France (infinite annotation)
- Maïs de France (infinite annotation)
- Miel de France (infinite annotation)
- Viande Française (infinite annotation)
- Volaille Française (infinite annotation)
- Viande Porcine Française (infinite annotation)
- Viande Bovine Française (infinite annotation)
- Lait Français (infinite annotation)
- Farine de blé français (infinite annotation)
- Blé français (infinite annotation)
- Soja Français (infinite annotation)
- Soja Français sans OGM (infinite annotation)
- Poulet Français (infinite annotation)
- Lapin Français (infinite annotation)
- Canard Français (infinite annotation)
- Viande de veau français (infinite annotation)
- Société Française de Contrôle de Viande Halal (infinite annotation)
- Farine de sarrasin français (infinite annotation)
- Pêche française (infinite annotation)
- Viande Ovine Française (infinite annotation)
- Viande d'agneau français (infinite annotation)
Packaging
- Green Dot (means the manufacturer paid a contribution to CITEO) (infinite annotation)
- Triman (means it's actually recyclable) (infinite annotation)
- 1-PET (infinite annotation)
- 1-PETE (infinite annotation)
- 2-PEHD (infinite annotation)
- 2-HDPE (infinite annotation)
- 3-PVC (infinite annotation)
- 4-PELD (infinite annotation)
- 4-LDPE (infinite annotation)
- 5-PP (infinite annotation)
- 6-PS (infinite annotation)
- 7-O (infinite annotation)
- 8-Lead (infinite annotation)
- 9-Alkaline (infinite annotation)
- 10-NiCD (infinite annotation)
- 11-NiMH (infinite annotation)
- 12-Li (infinite annotation)
- 13-SO(Z) (infinite annotation)
- 14-CZ (infinite annotation)
- 20-PAP (infinite annotation)
- 21-PAP (infinite annotation)
- 22-PAP (infinite annotation)
- 40-FE (infinite annotation)
- 41-ALU (infinite annotation)
- 50-FOR (infinite annotation)
- 51-FOR (infinite annotation)
- 60-COT (infinite annotation)
- 61-TEX (infinite annotation)
- 62-TEX (infinite annotation)
- 69-TEX (infinite annotation)
- 70-GL (infinite annotation)
- 71-GL (infinite annotation)
- 72-GL (infinite annotation)
- 73-GL (infinite annotation)
- 74-GL (infinite annotation)
- 75-GL (infinite annotation)
- 76-GL (infinite annotation)
- 77-GL (infinite annotation)
- 78-GL (infinite annotation)
- 79-GL (infinite annotation)
- 80-Paper (infinite annotation)
- 81-PapPet (infinite annotation)
- 82 (infinite annotation)
- 83 (infinite annotation)
- 84-C/PAP (infinite annotation)
- 84-PapAl (infinite annotation)
- 85 (infinite annotation)
- 87-CSL (infinite annotation)
- 90 (infinite annotation)
- 91 (infinite annotation)
- 92 (infinite annotation)
- 95 (infinite annotation)
- 96 (infinite annotation)
- 97 (infinite annotation)
- 98 (infinite annotation)
Validation using Hunger Games labels
This is only a sub-selection of all the environnemental labels that might be relevant.
If you find anymore interesting labels, feel free to add them.
Help add the organic label
List of Hunger Games links to help with organic coverage
Products with an ASC code without the ASC label
Products with an ASC code without the ASC label
Products with an MSC code without the MSC label
Products with an MSC code without the MSC label
Categorize environmental labels in the labels taxonomy
It's now possible to add categories to labels to help the apps and website display it in a nicer way. Categorizing environmental labels will greatly help with that. Categorize environmental labels on GitHub
en:Label Rouge ca:Etiqueta Vermella de:Label Rouge es:Label Rouge fi:Label Rouge fr:Label Rouge nl:Label Rouge wikidata:en:Q3214309 label_categories:en: en:Quality, en:Environment
Getting information and logos for environmental labels
Research the logo
- provide 1-line bullet points of what it means (there can be several bullet points)
- Find a icon idea for each bullet point (not the icon itself, but an idea for the icon) using The Noun Project
- Add the Wikipedia/Wikidata page to the label taxonomy if it's not already available
Get the image for the logo
- Get the logo in SVG (or PNG otherwise): If we don't have a SVG logo, we'd need one, if possible like this: label-name-as-it-is-in-the-openfoodfacts-url.123x90.svg The height comes in second and should always be 90. You need to calculate the ratio to find out the width. if the logo is 246x180, you need to divide the height by 2 to get to 90, so you need to put height 90, and width 246/2=123.
- Send your research to @teolemon or commit it directly to GitHub if you are familiar with it.
Assessing product location
Processing locations & packaging codes
There are many traceability codes available on the food packaging. Those usually indicate the plant location which is helpful to compute distance the product has traveled. For instance, we do a map of all worldwide and European plants called Made Near Me. Some countries are still missing or not deployed.
TODO: Your help would be welcome (involves data harvesting and cleaning from official websites)
- EMB codes and EU Codes
- Madenear.me uses OFF data to indicate where the product was packaged
Origins of ingredients
Often times, the origin of ingredients is not in the ingredient list itself. It can be written on the packaging.
TODO: Create additional REGEX for Robotoff
Stores and brands
Those can be useful to get a coarse idea of location.
TODO: Improve the stores taxonomy worldwide and in France
LCA files produced by other institutions
We are lucky to get lifecycle analysis values for France but we need a similar values for other countries in the world. If you'd like to help with that, even for countries other than your own, please get in touch on Slack.
TODO: Get LCA values for various countries
Packaging
TODO:
- We need to flesh out the packaging taxonomy that is currently on GitHub (TODO: Insert URL)
- You can select and crop photos of the recycling instructions for existing products
Fishing
See Fishing
TODO:
- Adding translations for the common name of the fishes in your language would be useful.
- Creating small descriptions of the fishing methods, probably based on Wikipedia, with a freely reusable image, that is coherent with the other fishing methods images
Carbon footprint printed on packaging
A very limited amount of companies compute and print the carbon footprint on the packaging. Gathering those is very useful whenever you see it.
- http://www.indice-environnemental.fr/les_produits/produit_w?id=242
- http://www.produits-casino.fr/developpement-durable/dd_indice-carbone-indice-calcul.html
- http://www.mieuxproduire.fr/les-produits/
Old brainstorm
Most of those elements are modeled into the LCA averages, so getting data on them is nice but not crucial to computing the CO2 impact on the short term.
- Different kind of products
- "Growing"/"Breeding" Footprint
- Pesticides and other chemicals (fertilizer, herbicides , pesticides)
- Water consumption
- Nonrenewable resources
- Land use (deforestation, biodiversity)
- Waste management
- Algae producer
- Transformation footprint
- Harvest/Slaughter
- Products with several sub-ingredients
- Unknown sourcing of ingredients
- Some ingredients sourced (and sometimes from remote places)
- Packaging footprint
- FSC
- Recyclability
Warehouse Locations
- Auchan - http://www.livrer-auchan.net/entrepots/carte-entrepots.php
- Carrefour - http://edi.carrefour.eu/gln_store.cfm?lang=fr
Point of sale location
- Point of sale field
- App where you could save your favorite store ?
Consumption location
- Would mean inputting your personal address and mean of transportation
Company CSR
- Fight against climate change (is the company carbon neutral ? how much is emitted ?…)
- ISO, environmental management systems, subcontractors…