Version: v1
Date: June 1, 2026
Prepared by: JD Capuano, Director of Research, HowGood; Lizz Aspley, Metrics Architect, HowGood
Reviewed by: Arthur Gillett, Chief Research Officer, HowGood
OVERVIEW
Global Carbon Database
An overview of HowGood's Global Carbon Database, a specialized data solution designed to provide the food, beverage, and agri-food sectors with immediate, verified carbon intelligence.
About the Global Carbon Database
The Global Carbon Database (GCD) is a high-impact, specialized data solution designed to provide the Food, Beverage, and Agri-Food sectors with immediate, verified carbon intelligence. It serves as a foundational resource for sustainability practitioners who require granular, scientific insights into the environmental impact of products, ingredients, and commodities without the initial investment of a full enterprise platform.
Built on the rigor of Latis
The GCD is an extension of the industry-leading HowGood Latis platform – a system specifically engineered for scaling Scope 3.1 carbon accounting and automated Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) creation.
By utilizing the GCD, users leverage the same high-caliber data used by the world’s largest food brands to manage complex agricultural supply chains. The methodology and governance underlying the GCD ensures users have compliance-ready data that has been granted Limited Assurance by the Carbon Trust in alignment with:
By utilizing the GCD, users leverage the same high-caliber data used by the world’s largest food brands to manage complex agricultural supply chains. The methodology and governance underlying the GCD ensures users have compliance-ready data that has been granted Limited Assurance by the Carbon Trust in alignment with:
- GHG Protocol Product Standard: The gold standard for life cycle greenhouse gas accounting.
- ISO 14067: The international standard for the carbon footprint of products.
- Carbon Trust’s Product Carbon Footprint Standard (Version 3.0): Ensuring the highest level of methodological integrity and transparency.
For more information about HowGood’s PCF methodology, see HowGood Product Carbon Footprint Methodology & Guidance V4.0.
Targeted intelligence for the agri-food value chain
The GCD is designed for practitioners who need to understand the impacts of food systems through a cost-effective lens. It offers specialized data sets tailored to three key regional markets:
- North America
- Europe
- Australia
Each material present in products, ingredients, and commodities appears three times, once per market. While the formulation of each unique material may differ slightly per market, they were constructed with identical formulations (ingredients, allocation ration, percent inclusion within formulation) for the sake of like-for-like comparison.
The main difference in emissions for a set of materials is driven by the location of the primary crop or commodity, processing location, and manufacturing location, where relevant. Locations were identified based on the market and the global production and import-export data. Accordingly, land management and land use change locations correlate to crop or primary commodity sourcing location. Whether that be the farm, ranch, landing dock for wild seafood, mine for minerals, etc. Upstream processing shown at the ingredient and product levels is determined either by the proximity to the primary crop or commodity or expected processing location when commodities that are not locally processed into ingredients are traded based on global trade data. A good example is cacao into cocoa products, where the crop is typically grown in a tropical or subtropical location and often processed into ingredients like cocoa butter in other locations. Product manufacturing is determined by the market itself.
Differences are further explained in the expected variance and similarities section below.
The main difference in emissions for a set of materials is driven by the location of the primary crop or commodity, processing location, and manufacturing location, where relevant. Locations were identified based on the market and the global production and import-export data. Accordingly, land management and land use change locations correlate to crop or primary commodity sourcing location. Whether that be the farm, ranch, landing dock for wild seafood, mine for minerals, etc. Upstream processing shown at the ingredient and product levels is determined either by the proximity to the primary crop or commodity or expected processing location when commodities that are not locally processed into ingredients are traded based on global trade data. A good example is cacao into cocoa products, where the crop is typically grown in a tropical or subtropical location and often processed into ingredients like cocoa butter in other locations. Product manufacturing is determined by the market itself.
Differences are further explained in the expected variance and similarities section below.
Key features
- CRADLE-TO-GATE VISIBILITY
Comprehensive footprints covering everything from the farm-level (or equivalent at the ranch, landing dock, mine, etc.) through to the manufacturing gate
- BIOGENIC CARBON TRACKING
Includes critical data on biogenic emissions for thousands of products, allowing for a sophisticated understanding of land-based carbon cycles essential to Agri-Food reporting
- BUILT FOR SCALE
Instant access to PCF values for thousands of finished products and hundreds of foundational ingredients and commodities
- LIFE CYCLE STAGE BREAKDOWNS
Granular data at every step of the processing journey to identify carbon "hotspots" and drive procurement strategyIn line with the Accountability Framework initiative (AFI)
Technical specifications
The following specifications outline the methodological framework, system boundaries, and data delivery standards for the HowGood Global Carbon Database. These specs ensure that sustainability practitioners can seamlessly integrate GCD data into their existing carbon accounting workflows with full transparency.
Data Delivery & Units
To ensure consistency and ease of comparison across categories, all data is standardized using a uniform functional unit and metric.
- Functional Unit: 1 kilogram (1 kg) of the finished product, ingredient, or commodity.
- Reporting Unit: Kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO2e).
- Metric: kgCO2e / 1kg of product.
System Boundaries by Category
The GCD applies rigorous life cycle assessment (LCA) boundaries tailored to the specific stage of the Agri-Food value chain. Please note there is overlap between what can be considered a Finished Product and Ingredients. For example, olive oil and orange juice are listed within Ingredients because they are used in multi-ingredient Finished Products, but can also be Finished Products themselves. Materials were assigned based on the preceding logic into the three categories below.
Each category includes an aggregated value with and without packaging. All three categories list the same summary metric name of Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate (with packaging) to support consistent data ingestion by data teams. Please note that the life cycle stages included within each category vary, and are listed below.
Each category includes an aggregated value with and without packaging. All three categories list the same summary metric name of Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate (with packaging) to support consistent data ingestion by data teams. Please note that the life cycle stages included within each category vary, and are listed below.
Finished Products
Summary metric name: Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate (with packaging)
Boundary life cycle stages for Finished Products:
Boundary life cycle stages for Finished Products:
- Land Management: Emissions from on-farm activities, including fertilizer application, manure management, and machinery fuel.
- Land Use Change (sLUC): Emissions associated with the conversion of land for agricultural use (aligned with GHG Protocol standards, including the current draft LSRG standard, and GCD will be updated to a newer version in advance of LSRS going into effect January 1, 2027).
- Upstream processing impacts for all ingredients included in the formulation.
- Transportation
- Primary packaging materials and associated manufacturing impacts.
- Energy and emissions associated with the final manufacturing/assembly stage.
Ingredients
Summary metric name: Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate (with packaging)
Boundary life cycle stages for Ingredients:
Boundary life cycle stages for Ingredients:
- Land Management: Emissions from on-farm activities, including fertilizer application, manure management, and machinery fuel.
- Land Use Change (sLUC): Emissions associated with the conversion of land for agricultural use (aligned with GHG Protocol standards, including the current draft LSRG standard, and GCD will be updated to a newer version in advance of LSRS going into effect January 1, 2027).
- All industrial processing required to transform a raw commodity into a specialized ingredient (e.g., the milling of wheat into flour or the extraction of oils).
- Transportation of raw materials to the processing facility.
- Packaging materials
Commodities
Summary metric name: Cradle-to-Manufacturing Gate (with packaging)
Boundary life cycle stages for Commodities:
Boundary life cycle stages for Commodities:
- Land Management: Emissions from on-farm activities, including fertilizer application, manure management, and machinery fuel.
- Land Use Change (sLUC): Emissions associated with the conversion of land for agricultural use (aligned with GHG Protocol standards, including the current draft LSRG standard, and GCD will be updated to a newer version in advance of LSRS going into effect January 1, 2027).
- Packaging materials to protect primary commodities leaving farm-gate or equivalent.
The GCD file includes a data dictionary explaining each field and differences between products, ingredients, and commodities. Metrics representing individual life cycle stages will be populated with a value when relevant to the category. If a life cycle stage is not included within the category boundary, the value will be zero. In some cases, a lifecycle stage may be relevant, but the value may be zero. For example, if there is zero land use change for a given commodity and location.
Expected variance and similarities
Calculating product carbon footprints for the same material in three markets with different raw commodity sourcing locations, upstream processing locations, transportation distances and manufacturing locations will result in different PCF values.
Most of the differences in PCF values for the same product, ingredient, or commodity will be within a reasonable range between the three markets. This expected variance is based on primary commodity sourcing location as a driver of agricultural impacts for land management and land use change, And for ingredients and products, may also reflect differences in processing location, manufacturing location, and transportation distances.
If you encounter what you perceive as unexpected variance – or too great of a range for a given product, ingredient or commodity across markets – we encourage you to check our GCD FAQ document on why some commodities, ingredients, or products will have a notably larger or higher or lower carbon impact in any given market. For example, for the commodity peppers or the ingredient paprika, the EU market has notably lower carbon impacts. These lower carbon impacts for peppers or paprika from the EU are driven by sourcing from southwest Europe, where inputs required at the on-farm stage are measurably lower than for growing locations in the other two markets.
For certain metrics, like Waste Generated in Operations, you will see similar values across a variety of products. The similarity is a function of our assumptions of the amount of waste during the manufacturing stages. There is limited data available at this stage and it is a small contribution to the overall footprint.
Most of the differences in PCF values for the same product, ingredient, or commodity will be within a reasonable range between the three markets. This expected variance is based on primary commodity sourcing location as a driver of agricultural impacts for land management and land use change, And for ingredients and products, may also reflect differences in processing location, manufacturing location, and transportation distances.
If you encounter what you perceive as unexpected variance – or too great of a range for a given product, ingredient or commodity across markets – we encourage you to check our GCD FAQ document on why some commodities, ingredients, or products will have a notably larger or higher or lower carbon impact in any given market. For example, for the commodity peppers or the ingredient paprika, the EU market has notably lower carbon impacts. These lower carbon impacts for peppers or paprika from the EU are driven by sourcing from southwest Europe, where inputs required at the on-farm stage are measurably lower than for growing locations in the other two markets.
For certain metrics, like Waste Generated in Operations, you will see similar values across a variety of products. The similarity is a function of our assumptions of the amount of waste during the manufacturing stages. There is limited data available at this stage and it is a small contribution to the overall footprint.