Approaching the Mid-Autumn Festival, the mooncake market is a hot scene, and various new flavors of mooncakes have appeared.
Among them, a special "carbon neutral" mooncake stands out among many mooncakes due to its green environmental protection attributes - it is Zhenggu (Beijing) Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhenggu Agriculture), a domestic organic food provider, and Zhenggu carbon neutral organic mooncake jointly launched by Carbon Block, which can clearly view all the carbon footprint information of the product from raw material production to distribution on the packaging box.
How are "carbon neutral" mooncakes created? What are the advantages compared to traditional mooncakes on the market? How is the carbon footprint calculated? Will "carbon-neutral" food become the mainstream trend of the industry in the future? In this regard, a reporter from China Environment News conducted an interview.
The ingenious "scheming" behind a box of "carbon neutral" mooncakes
How is "carbon neutral" mooncake achieved, and does it mean that all aspects of production are pollution-free? Zhao Huijuan, partner and general manager of Zhenggu Zero Carbon Solutions, told reporters that "carbon neutral moon cakes" are not the same as "zero carbon moon cakes", and "zero carbon" in principle refers to zero carbon emissions in all links, which is almost difficult to achieve for most production scenarios. In view of this, it is necessary to start from the production process of the life cycle of moon cakes and reduce emissions at the source as much as possible.
"The 'carbon neutral' organic mooncake we launched is the product's best efforts to reduce emissions throughout the life cycle from raw materials, transportation to production and distribution, and the remaining carbon emissions are offset by the purchase of carbon credits from certified voluntary emission reduction projects to achieve neutralization." Zhao Huijuan said that "carbon neutral" moon cakes are closer to the "carbon neutral" business model adopted in the production process, which makes moon cakes environmentally friendly.
Taking this year's Zhenggu Agriculture and Carbon Barrier cooperation with an organic mooncake called "Heart Like the Moon" as an example, Zhao Huijuan gave reporters a detailed introduction to the ingenious "scheming" behind a box of "carbon neutral" mooncakes. More than 95% of the raw materials of this box of mooncakes are made from organic food, which are obtained from self-operated organic farms or organic farming. For example, the raw materials for the taste of Geisha coffee come from sustainable coffee farms that have been practicing sustainable production for a long time, using agroforestry compounds, shady slope planting, physical pest control and other methods, and fermentation of waste peels and pulp as fertilizer. Cocoa, the raw material of chocolate flavor, comes from family farms in mixed forest ecosystems, etc.
In the production process, the production process is improved to save raw materials, improve production efficiency, reduce waste emissions and energy consumption. We will also try our best to use clean energy, use green electricity to support production, and maximize energy conservation and emission reduction.
In the packaging process, environmentally friendly fast-growing paulownia wood is used for packaging, and the mortise and tenon structure is spliced to reduce gluing and facilitate storage and recycling. The waist seal is also made of environmentally friendly materials, such as FSC responsible paper; The instructions are printed with soybean ink to reduce the pollution caused by the volatilization of harmful substances.
"In addition, the distribution of products from the factory to the warehouse to the hands of consumers is also used in cooperation with express delivery companies." Zhao Huijuan told reporters that although efforts have been made to reduce carbon emissions in all aspects of production, there will still be carbon emissions in the whole process of the birth of moon cakes.
According to the carbon barrier accounting, a box of 480 grams and 8 pieces of "Heart Like the Moon" moon cakes produced a total of about 1.59kg of carbon emissions, 1080g of carbon emissions in the raw material link, 295.9g in the packaging link, 127.6g in the product production link, 78.2g in the product transportation stage, and 5.1g in the product distribution stage.
"Following the carbon footprint accounting, we have an understanding of the carbon emissions of the whole process of the product, and for the links that can no longer be reduced or eliminated, we choose to purchase carbon emissions through the carbon trading market to offset them, which is the means for moon cakes to achieve 'carbon neutrality'." Zhao Huijuan said.
To scientifically and transparently calculate the "carbon account", it is necessary to consider all aspects of the whole life cycle
How is the carbon footprint data of each link disclosed on the mooncake box scientifically calculated?
"The carbon emissions of moon cakes need to comprehensively consider all aspects of the product life cycle, such as raw material selection, material supply, production, packaging design, product transportation and distribution, etc., and the superposition of these factors makes carbon value calculation a complex task." Fu Chenjie, the operation manager of carbon barrier products, gave an example to reporters, taking the above-mentioned moon cakes as an example, which contains 5 flavors, in addition to the main raw material wheat, there are dozens of high-quality ingredients from all over the world, and the diversity of raw material sources undoubtedly increases the difficulty of tracking; Moreover, the production of moon cakes involves multiple steps, and the types of energy used in each process are also different, and the amount of energy used and carbon emission factors need to be counted in detail. Diversified transportation methods and packaging of different materials are also difficult to carry out accounting.
According to Fu Chenjie, they mainly carry out accounting based on the two standards of ISO14067 and PAS2050, and the final result is also disclosed to consumers and stakeholders in the form of carbon footprint labels, so that users can view the carbon emissions of each life cycle stage of the product.
"Behind a delicious 'carbon neutral' organic mooncake, there are obvious costs such as carbon sink fees and high-quality raw materials, as well as potential costs such as time, communication, education, manpower, and management." For example, the time cost includes the time for data collection, data accounting, and verification; In terms of communication costs, it involves multiple entities such as raw material manufacturers, packaging manufacturers, accounting agencies, and verification agencies, which is relatively complex; In terms of education costs, "carbon neutral" mooncakes are a new thing, and many consumers do not know much about them, so they need to increase science popularization and publicity efforts to promote green consumption.
"Compared with ordinary moon cakes, the entry threshold for 'carbon neutral' moon cakes will indeed be higher, and a dedicated zero-carbon solution team is required to organize and carry out." Zhao Huijuan said that these do not mean that they will become a burden on enterprises, but will open up new market tracks for enterprises and bring more orders for their "carbon neutral" products, which represents the continuous increase in green, low-carbon, innovative and sustainable consumption concepts and behaviors.
Zhao Huijuan revealed that so far, they have provided organic food gift services to more than 20,000 corporate customers such as Boston Consulting Group, Huawei, Vanke, and Envision, and provided organic food delivery services to more than 1.2 million families. In addition, taking "carbon neutral" mooncakes as an example, the market demand for such products has been verified through real feedback from clients.
"In addition, in the process of business practice, we continue to strengthen information exchange and value co-construction with partners and customers in the upstream and downstream of the value chain, and work together to promote responsible production and consumption and promote sustainable social development." Zhao Huijuan added.
Will "carbon-neutral" food become the mainstream trend of the industry in the future?
It is understood that Zhenggu Agriculture has been making organic food since the establishment of the company in 2007, carrying out sustainable production practices, sharing organic, carbon neutral, and biodiversity-friendly natural deliciousness, and promoting environmental friendliness from the production and consumption ends.
"Climate change and sustainable development have become a topic of global concern, consumer demand for low-carbon, environmentally friendly products continues to grow, and the food industry, as one of the important sources of global greenhouse gas emissions, has huge potential for emission reduction, so promoting the low-carbon transformation of the industry is not only a necessary move to respond to the global call for emission reduction, but also a strategy to meet market demand and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises." Zhao Huijuan said that choosing organic agricultural production methods is an important path to achieve "carbon neutrality".
"Carbon neutrality" is now changing from an abstract concept to something within reach of life, and as a new development concept, it has quickly become a hot spot of social concern in a short period of time. As far as the food industry is concerned, many consumers have doubts about whether this business method of combining "carbon neutrality" with food will become the mainstream trend of the food industry in the future.
Zhang Youting, co-founder and vice president of Zhenggu Agriculture, and an expert of the China Organic Product Certification Technical Working Group, has his views on this issue. "With the country's top-down implementation of the 'dual carbon' concept, the economic development model dominated by 'carbon neutrality' will inevitably affect every industry. Therefore, in the future, more companies will either actively or passively join the path of 'carbon neutrality' organic development. However, it remains to be seen whether the development model of 'carbon-neutral organic food' will become a mainstream trend in the food industry in the future. Zhang Youting said that it should be pointed out that it is not impossible to influence more companies through this concept and make them embark on a similar development path.
"Compared with the industrial sector, the combination of 'carbon neutrality' and the food industry needs to be more comprehensive." Zhang Youting said that in the industrial sector, an improvement in industrial technology could revolutionize the entire industry, resulting in an overall decline in the industry's carbon emissions. But for the food industry, the reduction of carbon emissions needs to be reflected in every step of production, from the cultivation of crops to the processing of products.
Moreover, food producers need to take a part of the profit of the product to offset the carbon emissions generated in the production process, although this part is not large, but it still increases the cost of commodity production, which in turn leads to an increase in product prices, which will affect consumer groups. Moreover, consumers should usually choose to buy products after understanding and accepting the concept of "carbon neutrality", which actually screens the consumer group.
"In the future, with the active guidance and support of government policies, the continuous promotion of technological innovation in the industry, the continuous promotion of green consumption by the state, the gradual improvement of consumers' awareness of environmental protection, the collaborative cooperation of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, and the improvement and establishment of carbon neutral food standards and certification systems, I believe that the industry will usher in vigorous development." Fu Chenjie added.