Garden of Life is a leading Nestle’ U.S. brand and the #1 brand in the natural products industry. This exciting company supports health and well-being with the highest quality, USDA organic whole food nutritional products. Sustainability is core to the company; they see the quality of air, water, and the environment to be vital to their mission of Empowering Extraordinary Health.
Leading On Sustainability
Garden of Life has a long history with sustainability. Since 2006 they have been offsetting 100% of their electricity usage and in 2018 and 2019, they were awarded Best for the World by B Corp.
Now they are leading once again. Garden of Life has taken innovative action to become the first company in its sector to commit to a very comprehensive level of carbon neutrality.
They chose to partner with SustainaBase because of our unique and thorough approach to mapping their entire supply chain from the seed that is planted in the organic farm, through to the manufacturing and distribution centers. The SustainaBase mapping process and software gives them the ability to view deep into their operations through a carbon emissions lens for the first time.
Garden of Life’s Goals
- Track complete scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for business operations
- Utilize the lifecycle assessment methodology to determine the carbon footprint of the entire product line
- Achieve carbon-neutral certification for brand operations as well as across all products
- Ability to manage emissions on an ongoing basis across the company and into the supply chain
The SustainaBase Approach
Onboarding
- Producing a complete mapping of Garden of Life’s operations to see the company through the lens of carbon emissions
- Producing a complete mapping of Garden of Life’s supply chain to see its operations through the lens of carbon emissions
- Establishing an automated, ongoing inflow of disparate data sources
- Setting up the platform for data inflow with baked-in science needed to meet Garden of Life’s goals
Dynamic Platform
- Delivering a full, protocol-compliant Dynamic Carbon Footprint™ for Garden of Life’s operations to track performance on a continuous basis
- Delivering a full, protocol-compliant Dynamic Supply Chain Footprint™ for Garden of Life’s operations to track performance on a continuous basis
- Providing platform features and visualizations that the team can use to reach its carbon neutrality, reduction, and other ESG goals.
Innovative Approach
- Used the above to evaluate carbon neutral certification options and made a recommendation for the best fit (SustainaBase is both carbon neutral certification program and offset agnostic, finding you the best fit for your needs)
- Created an innovative, dynamic, and comprehensive approach going deep into the supply chain and across product lines to evaluate the carbon footprint of Garden of Life’s products on an ongoing basis
Outcome
Garden of Life has obtained Carbonfree® Product Certification from Carbonfund.org across their product line.
- The products will now all be part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly Program.
- The SustainaBase system will continue to show Garden of Life the hotspots and opportunities in their supply chain and operations so that they know where to focus their carbon reduction efforts. They will also easily see the impact of their efforts and initiatives against their targets.
Delivering a Breakthrough Approach to Supply Chains Emissions Management
Garden of Life began by working with SustainaBase to create a full accounting of their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, but they didn’t want to stop there. The team’s goal was to understand and track their entire cradle to grave carbon emissions profile across their product line. But with hundreds of products, conducting individual product LCAs (Life Cycle Assessments) was going to take too long and be too costly and cumbersome.
To solve for this, at SustainaBase we have designed an innovative and data-driven approach to account for the emissions of manufactured goods and packaging that meets rigorous requirements and guidelines established by Product Life Cycle Assessment protocols. Ingredients, packaging, manufacturing facility energy use, waste, and even end-of-life product data are fed into the SustainaBase software system and updated on an ongoing basis. Data visualizations enable Garden of Life to see the emissions benefits of the sourcing decisions they have been making for years and they will be able to evaluate packaging and ingredient options that will minimize their emissions in the future. Additionally, they will be able to continue to collaborate with partner companies to create pathways to emissions reductions.
Scope 3 Product Transportation Insights That Enable Emissions Reductions
Many approaches to greenhouse gas inventories take the path of least resistance and simply do high level estimations without granular detail. A lack of data means a lack of insights to inform the best decision making. And this wouldn’t deliver at all on the Garden of Life team’s aspiration to be out ahead and intimately understand their operations in this new way.
Moving products around is a big source of emissions for many consumer packaged goods and natural products companies. Transportation and distribution data is extensive and has a wealth of information if analyzed correctly. At SustainaBase, we automated and transformed ongoing feeds of this vital data. Now the Garden of Life team has intelligence that enables the creation of strategies and policies to work with their transportation and distribution firms.
Committing to carbon neutrality was a natural extension of everything Garden of Life has been doing for years and they have chosen to do it in a way that leads the way for others.
At SustainaBase we are honored to bring transparency and ongoing monitoring of the carbon emissions of operations so that the Garden of Life can deliver on its goal of carbon neutrality. Reach out, we look forward to answering your questions and helping you to learn more about setting targets, monitoring, tracking, and reducing your emissions to meet your organization’s goals.
