Maturing food footprint tools, solutions, and uptake to accelerate a rapid EU food transition

There is a recognized and urgent need for better food footprint data to accurately inform the sustainable food system transition as the current knowledge infrastructure is inadequate both in terms of scientific robustness and real-world suitability for regulatory and business decision support. The objective of GREENGROCER is to make foundation-strengthening investments in critical knowledge infrastructure in order to advance food footprint data from lab to application. The project packages investments across over a dozen leading mainstream tools including Trase, HESTIA, CoolFarm, FABIO, and EXIOBASE, which collectively form the foundation of most food footprint data currently in use. Work in GREENGROCER: 1) improves the scientific depth by revisiting long standing weak areas including on subnational supply chain specificity, reliability information, and novel and neglected products and impacts such as spices, seaweed, insect protein, cellular agriculture, cold chain energy use, and seafloor disturbance; 2) makes foundation-strengthening investments that take all models towards full compliance with the EU’s Product Environmental Footprint standards and improve FAIRness and interoperability; and 3) promotes exploitation through multi-stakeholder dialogue between food system researchers, industry, and regulators aimed at prioritising pain points and supporting effective regulation. Finally, to collate data without yet another centralised repository, the project leverages Europe’s competitive advantage in marrying AI with scientific expertise to pioneer a fact-based AI expert which can interact with and gather the rapidly growing volume of food system science. Aimed at the Horizon Europe work program destination of reducing the environmental impact of the food system, GREENGROCER outputs are oriented around 13 specific relevant EU policy frameworks including FSFS, EUDR, ESRS, CSRD, CSDDD, and the CAP.