The Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) launched a branded Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) data pilot for commercial feed ingredients. Details and criteria have been drafted by GFLI’s technical experts over the past few months with the purpose of defining a robust process and standardized approach for branded data. This will be tested in the GFLI pilot that will run for a year.
Branded data is defined as lifecycle inventory/impact assessment (LCI/A) data for a feed ingredient marketed under a certain brand and owned by a company or entity. The basic principle for branded data is using as much primary data as possible. Branded data allows producers of feed ingredients to be transparent about the impacts of their specific products and provides credibility to their customers.
“Branded data is currently not widely available or accepted into existing life cycle datasets, but is often requested by front running companies wishing to distinguish their brand product,” explained us Tom Battagliese, chair of the GFLI Technical Management Committee. The pilot phase was initiated in January 2022 and will run for at least a year. “It’s in the interest of GFLI and the industry value chain as a whole to explore the possibilities for such products. This will accelerate the maturation of the market and will make knowledge on LCAs more accessible within the industry, which in the end will lead to a more sustainable feed and animal protein value chain through lower environmental footprint of feed ingredients,”said Battagliese.
Data of different types of feed ingredients will undergo a detailed review on the criteria drafted to ensure the GFLI technical experts created a solid methodology that covers the wide range of ingredients suitable as branded data. The application submission deadline is March 6, 2022. More information here.
Environmental performance in the animal nutrition
The Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) is an independent animal nutrition and food industry institute with the purpose of developing a publicly available Animal Nutrition Life Cycle Analysis database to support meaningful environmental assessment of animal nutrition products and stimulate continuous improvement of the environmental performance in the animal nutrition and food industry.
The GFLI LCA database was published on November 2020 with the aim to be the reference for assessing and benchmarking feed industry impact and improvement in LCA calculations. The GFLI is currently focused on garnering support through members and collaborative efforts, which allows the institute to invest in the frameworks to accelerate data generation and data use. Having a widely usable database with the majority of all feed ingredients present will be key for the success of GFLI.
