Environmental impacts
Working with partners to develop a system for measuring the carbon footprint of pet food
Measuring the carbon footprint of pet food is important, so UK Pet Food has worked with partners to develop a system to do just that!
FEDIAF – Europe's Pet Food Industry – supports the development of a harmonised legislative framework proposal based on the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology. And as a member of FEDIAF, UK Pet Food works with EU institutions and Member States involved in the project to determine how the PEF methodology should be used under future policy frameworks.
What is PEF?
Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is the official EU methodology to calculate the environmental footprint of products for cats and dogs as part of the European Commission's 'Building the single market for green products' initative.
The initiative aims to develop a harmonised method to monitor and report the environmental performance of products (PEF).
As pioneers of the PEF approach, FEDIAF has developed its own rules and methodology for pet food in 2018 which are officially adopted and endorsed by the European Commission.
FEDIAF's 'Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules' (PEFCR) for pet food gives clear guidelines for calculating the product environmental footprint of prepared pet food for cats and dogs, from ‘cradle to grave’.
PEFCR includes the following life stages – ingredient sourcing, packaging production, pet food manufacturing, distribution, use and packaging ‘end of life’ (EOL). Furthermore, it provides detailed guidance on using primary and secondary data, data quality and allocation rules, as well as the most relevant impact categories to be included when communicating the environmental footprint (EF) of prepared pet food for cats and dogs.