TOMATO HARVEST, GOOD PERFORMANCE IN MAREMMA: 74,000 TONS

We CIRIO CARE! Do you?

Cirio comes from a cooperative of 14,000 associated farming companies that care for their lands, their products and their people. Our farmers have always had this ethos and do their best every day to preserve their products and land from pollution, already minimised through rigorous environmental sustainability policies.

Beyond this, to offset the emissions of our production which are not under our control, we decided to invest in certified projects, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and specifically aimed at compensating any contribution to climate change.

So, we decided to purchase voluntary carbon credits registered on a public registry (eCO2care registry) generated by a project that have completed the verification process, thus neutralizing the CO_2e emissions associated to “Cirio climate neutral” product.

This approach has been applied to the 400g can of Polpa Cirio Chopped Tomatoes, sold as a “compensated product” in the United Kingdom in year 2024.

How?

With the support of Tetis Institute (Techniques for The Impact on Sustainability), a spin-off of the University of Genoa, the GHG emissions of Cirio Climate Neutral product were calculated in the context of the EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) voluntary certification process.
Tetis Institute, in partnership with Cirio Group, investigates all the environmental issues along the entire Cirio chopped tomatoes product lifecycle, performing a ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ according to the internationally recognized ISO 14040-14044 standards. The obtained results, expressed as CO_2e associated to each single can, have been certified by DNV within the framework of Conserve Italia EPD Process (see attachment).

This value has been multiplied to the forecast amounts of Polpa Cirio annually sold in UK, based on internal statistics (less than 10 million units per year), thus calculating the total CO₂ emissions associated to the product, which conservatively resulted equal to 5,060 tons of CO_2e.

To purchase voluntary carbon credits (VER, Verified Emission Reduction), Cirio decided to support the Laguna del Dogà ecosystem, registered within the eco2care Registry,  in partnership with Blue Valley Company. The Dogà Lagoon, a unique ecosystem in the world located within the Northern Lagoon of Venice, is an oasis of over 1,800 hectares with 1,000 brackish water basins and a truly unique wealth of biodiversity that ensures the absorption of greenhouse gases.

The certified process captures large quantities of atmospheric CO₂ through the photosynthesis of macro-algae and phytoplankton, in a completely natural way.

Blue Valley applied the BIOS CO2 β Neutral v.3 Standard – Program 2: “Organic Agriculture” methodology based on the requirements defined by UNI / PdR 99: 2021 and ISO 14064 - 1 to obtain the voluntary certification of the reduction calculation and the compensation of the greenhouse gas emissions of organisms and products and the generation of carbon credits.

The assessment of CO₂ absorption is verified by a Certification Body.

Once VERs has been purchased, Cirio obtained a "Permanent Withdrawal Certificate" by the eCO2care Registry (www.eco2care.org  see website and attachment), confirming that the amount of credits purchased were permanently remove from the proponent's account.

Only projects that have completed the third-party certification process can be registered in the eCO2care registry and the credit accounting is publicly traceable, as a guarantee that the 6,829 credits purchased will be permanently withdrawn, so that they can no longer be purchased or sold by any other party. The registry shows all the details of the project and the documentation officially issued by the verifier (see www.eco2care.org)