The European fresh produce association Freshfel released a draft document on Tuesday intended to improve understanding of the environmental impact of the fruit and vegetable trade.

The draft, open for public comment until April 30, aims to establish Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) protocol for fresh fruits and vegetables and a common framework for measuring impacts. 

The effort covers 16 environmental indicators, including climate change, resource use (fossil fuels), toxicity, acidification, water use, and land use.

“In light of EU environmental footprint accountability requirements, as well as increasing transparency demands from the supply chain and consumers, there is a growing need for a standardized environmental footprint methodology for the fresh produce sector,” Freshfel said in a press release on Tuesday. 

“Freshfel Europe and its members have embarked on the Environmental Footprint Initiative to develop together a fresh fruit and vegetable environmental footprint methodology (FreshProducePEFCR), database, and digital tool that are broadly accepted by the industry, stakeholders, and consumers.”

The FreshProducePEFCR objectives are to set consistent rules to calculate relevant environmental information and to enable comparisons between environmental footprint studies.

Freshfel has also released draft documents relating specifically to fruit production and to vegetable production.

The Technical Secretariat for FreshProducePEFCR is Freshfel Europe (Chair), Wageningen Economic Research, Dutch Fresh Produce Centre, Greenyard, Dole PLC, Blonk Sustainability and PRé Sustainability.