Unibloom Documentation

User guide: baselines, scenarios, and targets
Electricity Grid Decarbonisation
Financial Calculations
- Net Cost
- Abatement Cost
Emissions Calculations
- Impact of Certifications

User guide: Baselines, Scenarios, and Targets

This section outlines the instructions for setting up baselines, building scenarios, and defining targets.

Baseline creation

Baselines are the foundation for understanding the current emissions of your products. They help you estimate the environmental impact based on your actual product formulations, whether it's chicken feed, ice cream, or any other product. By entering your ingredients and quantities, you can quickly calculate the emissions associated with that mix. This gives you a clear starting point to model changes, compare alternatives, and make informed decisions. You can create a baseline using your product recipe or bill of materials (BOM). If you need assistance setting up your first baseline, feel free to contact our team, we’re happy to guide you.

Step 1: Assign a clear and descriptive name to your baseline that allows for easy identification of the product being analyzed.

Step 2: Select the appropriate baseline type that corresponds to the product you are modeling, such as Broiler Feed, Ice Cream, or Vegetable Oils. The ingredient list presented will be specific to the selected category. For example, selecting "Broiler Feed" will display only relevant ingredients for broiler diets, excluding those for other animal feeds like pig or cattle feed.

Step 3: Provide the total quantity of the product or formulation you are analyzing for this baseline. Also can choose the region and supplier name if you are doing the same baseline for different locations and different suppliers. You can also choose the scope of the baseline as Scope 1, 3 or 3 in the drop down GHG category.

Step 4: To define your ingredient mix within the system, select the "Build Manually" option. This will display an extensive list of ingredients, each tagged with corresponding countries, life cycle stages, and methodologies. You can select multiple ingredients to form your baseline. For each selected ingredient:

Choose the relevant country of origin.
Enter the percentage contribution of that ingredient to the overall mix.

After saving your selections, a baseline preview will be generated that displays all the ingredients you have selected, along with their respective percentage contributions to the mix. This preview also includes a breakdown of the total emissions and overall cost associated with the feed mix. If you need to make any changes, you can click on “Edit Manually” to update your current baseline directly within the system. If you prefer to upload ingredients, download the Excel template, fill in the ingredient name, country, life cycle stage, and percentage, then upload the file. After finalizing the baseline, you can start creating different emission reduction initiatives and compare their impact against the original baseline directly within the system.

Scenarios Creation

Initiatives make it possible to model different emission reduction strategies and compare them against a defined baseline. These can represent any planned actions intended to reduce overall emissions. For instance, according to the climate report from Scandi Standard, one of the leading poultry producers in the EU, nearly 80% of Scope 3 emissions come from feed, with soy alone contributing around 60% of those emissions. To mitigate this, companies may aim to reduce soy usage by incorporating alternative, locally sourced protein ingredients. This feature enables modeling of such scenarios to assess the potential emission reductions and understand the associated costs of each initiative.

Step 1: Enter a clear, descriptive name for the scenario and select the relevant product category.

Step 2: Choose an existing baseline from the available list to serve as the reference point for scenario modeling.

Step 3: The selected baseline displays ingredient proportions, total emissions, and associated cost. To model alternative strategies, select “Add New Initiative.” Two options are available: change the location of an ingredient or change the ingredient itself. Based on the emission reduction plan, either update the country of origin for ingredients used in the baseline or replace them with alternative ingredients. For instance, to reduce emissions linked to soybeans, replace them with other protein sources such as sunflower seed meal or rapeseed meal (as an example).

Step 4: After creating the required number of initiatives, click “Next” to proceed to the results page. The page presents a comparison chart showing emissions and cost for each initiative. You can toggle the view to display only emissions, only cost, or both, depending on your analysis needs. Below the chart, a detailed breakdown is available for each initiative. This includes the emission reduction compared to the selected baseline, changes in cost, land use and land management emissions, and total FLAG emissions. Based on these results, Unibloom highlights the initiative that offers the most significant emission reduction relative to the baseline.

Step 6: Link one or more initiatives to your existing targets to evaluate their impact on overall reduction goals. Select a predefined target from the dropdown menu, then choose the initiatives you want to associate with it. Linking multiple initiatives helps assess how planned actions influence progress toward your sustainability targets.

Step 7: After linking initiatives to a target, navigate to the Initiatives section using the sidebar. This view displays all initiatives associated with active targets, including the one just linked. From here, open the initiative to define additional details. Set a start and end date, assign a status (e.g., idea stage, under research), and specify the scope of the initiative. If a FLAG emission split is required, select the appropriate configuration. Use the comments section to collaborate with other users who have access to the initiative. This space allows for discussion, feedback, and alignment on the implementation approach.

Targets creation

The Target feature allows you to set your emission reduction goals, with the option to create FLAG targets separately. For example, you can define a target such as achieving Net Zero by 2045 and add related sub-targets. Once set, you will be able to view projections for each year, including the required emissions reductions and the gap between your current baseline and your planned path.

Step 1: Provide a name for the target and select the department associated with it.

Step 2: Enter your current baseline data, which should include your current carbon footprint. If you do not specify a year for the baseline, it will automatically default to the current year.

Step 3: Set your reduction plan. The starting year will automatically be set to the year after your baseline year, and this cannot be changed. To modify the reduction target, you must first provide your baseline data. In this step, specify the target year (the year you plan to achieve the target) and enter the total reduction percentage you expect from your baseline (e.g., 100% for achieving Net Zero).

Step 4: The yearly breakdown of your reduction is available in the next section. Here, you can view the planned emission reductions for each year and see the amount of emissions to be reduced annually.

Step 5: Select the target type based on whether the current target is your main target or a sub-target. You can also choose the scope of emissions (Scope 1, 2, or 3) to which the target applies. Below this, select the relevant emission categories: either Energy & Industry emissions or FLAG emissions. FLAG targets focus on climate-related emissions from land use change, land management, and agriculture, and are separate from energy and overall emissions targets. The selected emission categories will determine how emissions from your planned initiatives are calculated. For example, if you plan an emissions reduction initiative for land management and link it to the FLAG target, the emission reduction will be attributed specifically to land management. This allows you to track FLAG reductions for each initiative without overlapping with other emission reductions.

Step 6: You can select the yearly electricity grid projection by choosing the grid country and specifying the amount of electricity purchased for the scope of this target. If you couldn’t find your country on the platform, please contact us. You may also include the projected impact of business growth on emissions. Specify the area of growth, the start and end years for the expected expansion, and the estimated percentage change in emissions. This percentage should reflect the anticipated variation relative to baseline emissions, taking into account future business growth or other volume-related developments.

Step 7: Click Save. Your target will be stored, and you will be directed to the target dashboard. In the dashboard, you can view the planned path and baseline in Graph 1, along with the gap between them. From here, you can create initiatives and link them to your targets to see how emission reduction initiatives will impact the targets..

Important Note: Initiatives must align with the scope of the target and fall within its start and end dates. While their duration may be shorter or longer, they must remain within the target's overall timeframe. Emissions can be split into FLAG (land use, land management) and non-FLAG categories. If you choose the FLAG split, emissions will only be visible when linked to a FLAG target. If linked to a non-FLAG target, only non-FLAG emissions will be displayed for that initiative.

Customized data creation

The data customization feature allows you to input your own emissions data for specific ingredients. You can enter custom values for any individual emission category. If you only have data for FLAG emissions, you can apply your own FLAG values while continuing to use Unibloom's default data for non-FLAG emissions and vice versa. You can also add customized cost data using this feature.

Step 1: Navigate to the Data Hub on the sidebar to access the Emission Factor Management section.

Step 2: Use the Ingredients dropdown to search for the specific ingredient and country you want to customize. Click Search to proceed.

Step 3: A table will display the selected ingredient across various life cycle stages for the chosen region. Scroll the table horizontally to the right to find a pen icon to edit the emissions. Click the icon to begin editing.

Step 4: The default emission source (e.g., Agri-footprint) will be visible. Click the dropdown on the right and select Customise. Once selected, you can enter your own emission factor values. Scroll to the right end of the table and click Save to apply the changes. The system will automatically apply your customized data across all scenarios, and your customized emissions values will be reflected in scenario calculations.

Electricity Grid Decarbonisation

This section explains how a country's electricity grid decarbonisation impacts an emissions target in Unibloom.

Methodology

Baseline Data

Use 2022 electricity emissions as the starting point.
Incorporate the percentage of renewable electricity in 2022 to understand the current grid composition.

Country Commitment

Identify country published estimates/commitments towards renewable electricity. E.g. Denmark estimates that it will reach 100% renewable electricity by 2028.

Emissions Reductions Calculation

Assume an inverse proportional relationship between renewable electricity % in the grid and scope 2 emissions factor. E.g. 100% renewable electricity implies 0 kgCO2e/kWh emissions factor.
Assume a linear path for every country to their renewable electricity target.
Calculate future yearly emissions factors using these assumptions.

Financial Calculations

This section explains the calculations of the different financial metrics.

Net Cost

The Capital Expenditure plus the total oncost of the project over its lifetime. E.g. a project has an initial investment of 100,000 and a yearly oncost of 10,000 over its lifetime of 5 years. It's Net Cost is calculated as 100,000 + 10,000 x 5 = 150,000.

It maybe positive or negative. Negative implies a Net Savings

Net Savings

It is -1 x Net Cost

Abatement Cost

The Net Cost of a project divided by its emissions reductions in tCO2e. It may be positive or negative.

Emissions Calculations for Agricultural Products

Impact of Certifications

Currently, when certifications (e.g. RTRS) are applied, Unibloom accounts for their impact on land use change (LUC) emissions in the following way:

When the certification has a cut-off date before 2009

This means that the land on which the crop was grown has not been converted from forest or grasslands on or after 2009.

Unibloom calculates the impact on Land Use change by assuming 0 emissions for land use change for the certified quantity of the product. This is done with the following rationale:

Assumption that the date of the conversion event is on or before 2005. Since the exact date of the land conversion event is seldom known, this assumption is made to simplify calculations, with the purpose of allowing the organisation to analyse their impact to the 2030 targets.
Both the EF 3 methodology and SBTi FLAG guidance state that land use change emissions must be attributed, for a period of 20 years, to any product that was cultivated on converted land. Therefore, by assuming the conversion event to be on or before 2005, the land-use change impact may be evaluated as 0, since 2005 + 20 years = 2025 (the current date is greater than 2025).