One of the Netherlands’ largest salad vegetable producer associations has retained its climate-friendly label
Dutch salad vegetable supplier Harvest House has retained the Climate-Neutral Certified (CNC) sustainability label it first secured in February 2023, meaning it can continue to place a climate-friendly label on its cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes.
“This means that our efforts to be able to offer certified products have been found to be sufficient,” said Jelle Posthuma, environmental specialist at Harvest House.
The quality mark is assessed and issued by an independent party and shows that Harvest House has insight into the CO2 emissions of its products, is required to reduce ambitiously every year, and can compensate for the remaining emissions.
In its work towards a recent second audit, the grower association said it had deepened its understanding of its products’ current environmental impact.
“We do this with the Hortifootprint, a calculation method that gives us insight into the Eco-score of our products. We not only pay attention to climate change through CO2 emissions, but also look at 16 different impact categories.”
The company has also drawn up reduction plans with its members to reduce the environmental impact of the products they grow.
“Our ambition is to emit half as much CO2 equivalent per kg of product by 2030 compared to 2020,” Posthuma continiued. “Our ultimate goal is to grow climate-neutrally by 2040.”
While eliminating CO2 emissions from the growing process is not yet feasible, CNC criteria allow companies to compensate for residual emissions in addition to their achieved reduction targets.
“Together with our growers, we are reducing emissions further and further,” Posthuma adds. “This means that the part that needs to be compensated is becoming smaller and the costs are therefore lower.”
