SA fruit industry to develop ‘carbon calculator’

SOUTH AFRICA’S fruit and wine industries have embarked on a ground-breaking project to address the issues of climate change and its impact on doing business. First step in the research project initiated last month and co-ordinated by the Deciduous Fruit Producers' Trust will be to publish a 10-page summary of the key issues that relate to climate change and the impact on the fruit and wine industries. “This will provide a base-line document to get everyone on the same page,” Hugh Campbell, DFPT general manager, told FTW. And that’s likely to be out in the next two months. The key objective, however, is to develop an industry-based carbon calculator that will look into key aspects in the development of the boundaries – in other words what will be included or excluded in the measurement. “We will meet at end of the month to take that further and should have our first concept by January,” he said. The idea is to get the fruit and wine industries looking at the same issues so that a tool can be developed that everyone can use. “There’s a fair amount of negotiation around that,” said Campbell. “What South Africa does needs to be benchmarked against internationally accepted standards. We will also be looking at benchmarking our carbon footprint against competing countries,” he said. According to Citrus Research International, there has been a proliferation of carbon calculators, making it difficult to compare ‘apples with apples’. The demand to lower the carbon intensity of doing business and the emergence of carbon as a tradable commodity has significant implications for the SA fruit and wine export industries where ‘food miles’, ‘carbon footprint’ of competing countries, the impact for climate change at a regional level and the opportunity for carbon offset projects are all areas of focus. Since there is currently no single reputable information resource available to the SA fruit and wine export industries, a unified approach was seen as necessary. Major funder of the research is the Regional Standards Program (RSP) of the ComMark Trust, which is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development to help SADC countries and firms meet international food quality and safety standards for agri-business products.