FMI Offers Members Free Online Carbon Calculator

Food Marketing Institute (FMI) is now offering a carbon calculator developed by Verisae, which specializes in sustainability resource planning. Accessible only to FMI members, the calculator is available at no charge on the Arlington, Va.-based trade group’s Web site.

“This extremely useful resource will help retailers learn their company’s impact on the environment and measure progress as they implement sustainability programs,” said FMI president and CEO Leslie G. Sarasin.

Using the calculator, a retailer can measure its company’s carbon footprint, establish a baseline and ascertain the potential savings if it implements initiatives to lower energy use and emissions. The tool will help retailers set goals and gauge progress.

“By offering FMI the carbon calculator, it’s our goal to support the grocery retail industry,” explained said Paul Hepperla, VP of product strategy at Minneapolis-based Verisae. “We think these emissions baselines will allow organizations to take steps necessary to improve.” Hepperla added that the company believes “this will awaken many companies to their carbon journey and put them on a path to improve many areas of their business.”

FMI’s Sustainability Task Force, which consists of 26 member company experts, worked with Verisae to make the calculator available to the retail industry free. “As a small company, Buehler’s would not have had the capacity to calculate emissions in such an effective manner if not for the carbon reporting software provided by Verisae,” noted Scott Buehler, president of Wooster, Ohio-based Buehler’s Fresh Foods and a task force member. “We have used these results to benchmark where our company stands among peers. More important, we now know where we can improve and take action. This tool is a huge help to our efforts thus far.”

Verisae is currently demonstrating the calculator at Booth 6403 in the Technology Pavilion at FMI 2010 in Las Vegas.

The calculator is just one of the resources FMI offers to help the industry deal with a wide variety of sustainability issues. For a full list, visit www.fmi.org/sustainability/.
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