Sustainability Performance of Certified and Non-certified Food

What is it about?

The dataset described contains 24 indicators of economic, environmental and social performance, estimated for 2627 certified food value chains and their 2627 conventional reference products. The indicators are estimated at different levels of the value chain: farm level, processing level and retail level. It also contains the raw data based on which the indicators are estimated and its source, and the completed spreadsheet calculators for the following indicators: carbon footprint and foodmiles. This document describes the common method and indicators used to collect data for the twenty-six certified products and their conventional counterparts. The document presents the assumptions and choices, the process of data collection and the indicator estimation methods designed to assess the three sustainability dimensions within a reasonable time constraint, i.e. three person.months for each food quality scheme and its non-certified reference product. Several prioritizations were set regarding data collection (indicator, variable, value chain level) together with a level of representativeness specific to each variable and product type (country and sector). Technical details on how relatively common variables (e.g., number of animals per hectare, …) collected for each case study are combined into indicators (e.g., carbon footprint) are provided in the full documentation of the dataset.

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