Meet Carbon Maps, a new French startup that raised $4.3 million (€4 million) just a few weeks after its inception. The company is building a software-as-a-service platform for the food industry so they can track the environmental impact of each of their products in their range. The platform can be used as a basis for eco-assessments.
While there are quite a few carbon accounting startups like Greenly, Sweep, Persefoni And Watershed, Carbon Maps is not an exact competitor because it does not calculate a company’s CO2 emissions as a whole. Nor does it focus exclusively on carbon emissions. Carbon Maps focuses on the food industry and evaluates the environmental impact of products – not companies.
Co-founded by Patrick Asdaghi, Jérémie Wainstain and Estelle Huynh, the company succeeded in breeding a seed round with Breega And Samaipata — these two VC firms have already invested in Asdaghi’s previous startup, FoodCheri.
FoodChéri is a full-stack food delivery company that designs its own meals and sells them directly to end customers with an important focus on healthy nutrition. It also works Season, a sister company for series deliveries. The startup was taken over by Sodexo a few years ago.
“On the day I left, I started working on food and health projects again,” Asdaghi told me. “I wanted to make an impact, so I started moving up the supply chain and looking at agriculture.”
And the good news is that Asdaghi is not the only one looking at the food industry supply chain. In France, a few companies have set to work an eco score with a public body (ADEME) supervising the project. It is a life cycle analysis leading to a letter rating from A to E.
While very few brands include these letters on their labels, companies with good ratings are likely to use the eco-score as a selling point for years to come.
But these assessments could become even more widespread as regulations continue to evolve. The European Union is even working on a standard: the Environmental footprint of products (PEF). European countries can then create their own scoring systems based on these European criteria, which means that food companies need good data on their supply chains.
“The most important element in the new eco-score coming up is that there will be some differences within a product category because ingredients and farming methods are different,” Asdaghi said. “It will take into account the carbon impact, but also biodiversity, water consumption and animal welfare.”
For example, when looking at ground beef, it’s extremely important to know whether farmers use Brazilian soy or grass to feed livestock.
“We don’t want to create the ratings. We want to create the tools that help with calculations — sort of SAP,” Asdaghi said.
So far, Carbon Maps is working with two companies on pilot programs because it will take a huge amount of work to cover every industry in the food industry. The startup creates models with as many criteria as possible to calculate the impact of each criterion. It uses data from standardized sources such as GHG Protocol, IPCC, ISO 14040 and 14044.
The company focuses on food brands as they design the recipes and select their suppliers. Ultimately, Carbon Maps hopes that everyone in the supply chain will use its platform in some way.
“You can’t have a real climate strategy if you don’t work together across the chain,” Asdaghi said.
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