NL: New HortiFootprint Calculator update aids apps efficiency

Sustainability is an increasingly important theme within the ornamental horticulture sector. With the updated HortiFootprint Calculator, growers can calculate their environmental impact, helping them to produce more sustainably and meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements. In addition to ease of use and detailed life cycle analyses (LCA), the new HortiFootprint Calculator offers various optimizations compared with the previous version.

The HortiFootprint Calculator measures the environmental impact of pot plants and cut flowers over their entire life cycle. The LCA contains the sixteen impact categories and all eight life cycle stages of an ornamental product according to FloriPEFCR. Whereas the previous version focused mainly on CO₂ emissions and some basic aspects of environmental impacts, the new HortiFootprint Calculator covers a wide range of environmental topics such as climate change, land use and water usage. Unlike the previous HortiFootprint Calculator, environmental impact is calculated per product and not based on a business's overall production.

In addition, the HortiFootprint Calculator's user interface has been updated and simplified. "Data is delivered via a simple tool, and a dashboard provides a clear overview of different production chains, including energy sources, packaging materials, transport options, and raw materials. The new HortiFootprint Calculator features a comprehensive dashboard in an easy-to-understand and visually appealing format, in which the data can be viewed from different perspectives."The dashboard also includes a table view in which all sixteen impact categories and eight life cycle stages can be seen at a glance.

Winny van Adrichem–van Heijningen, Sales Manager, LetsGrow.com: "Sustainability is playing an increasingly significant role in the horticultural sector, which is why we are proud to launch the latest version of the HortiFootprint Calculator. With FloriPEFCR compliance and full coverage of all impact categories and life cycle stages, we are giving growers more insights into how to reduce their carbon footprint. The link to MPS makes the calculation easy to perform, so growers can run it more often throughout the year."

Paula den Hartog, Manager of Sustainability & Innovation, MPS: "It is important for us to be able to support growers. With this tool, we can do that by enabling a FloriPEFCR calculation, largely based on previously logged data. This simplifies the process and significantly reduces the effort required. The HortiFootprint Calculator helps businesses focus on improving their sustainability credentials, based on footprint data and by clearly displaying the final calculation on a user-friendly dashboard. Thanks to MPS's expertise and advanced systems, the quality of the data is automatically taken to a higher level."

"Current LetsGrow.com customers and growers with an MPS-ABC certification will find it even easier to calculate their footprint, as the data from the six basic indicators is already known."