Environmental Impact · SOLARA Design

Where the carbon comes from

The eight life-cycle stages

Every product is assessed across the same eight PEFCR life-cycle stages, from raw materials to end of life. The bars show how much carbon each stage adds per kilo of basil eaten — switch the system to see how the hotspots move.

Primer

What an environmental footprint is — and why it pays to know yours

01

A footprint is a full tally

A life-cycle assessment (LCA) adds up every environmental cost of getting a product to you — the energy to grow it, the fertiliser, the water, the fuel to move it, the packaging, the waste. Not just at the farm: cradle to grave.

02

It's measured per kilo eaten

To compare two farms fairly, everything is divided by the same yardstick: 1 kg of basil a shopper actually eats. That's the functional unit. Same basis, honest comparison.

03

It's now a business asset

EU buyers must soon report their supply-chain emissions (CSRD/ESRS). A credible, low footprint is becoming a ticket onto the supermarket shelf — and a number you can defend a premium price with.

The yardstick · "per kg eaten"

Why Farm32 grows 1.33 kg to sell you 1 kg

So what should a business do?

Turning the footprint into decisions

The full picture · beyond carbon

Carbon is only one of sixteen measures

A footprint isn't just CO₂. Farm32's indoor model wins on carbon, water and fossil energy, but loses on land-equivalent and scarce metals — because the solar field, building and batteries have to be built. A serious buyer looks at the whole board. Green = the system with the lower (better) value for that measure.

Environmental measure	What it means in plain terms	Morocco	Kenya	Unit	Winner
Overall single score	One blended number across all 16 (lower is better)	—	—	Pt

Note: a lower single score means a lower overall footprint. Here Kenya's blended score is lower because land-equivalent and metals are weighted heavily and Morocco's solar-plus-building infrastructure scores poorly there — a reminder that "which is greener" depends on what your buyers and regulators weight most. For carbon-focused reporting (the CSRD headline), Morocco wins clearly.

The live engine

Try it yourself: change the farm, watch the footprint move

This is the working calculator behind the numbers above. Each line is a real quantity from the farm's bill of materials; every footprint is that quantity multiplied by its impact factor, then summed across the inventory. Edit any value and all sixteen measures recompute instantly.

Footprint_i = Σ_j ( Quantity_j × Factor_ij )

Quantity what the farm uses (editable) · Factor impact per unit (EF 3.1) · Footprint the result for each measure

What the farm uses Quantity

The bill of materials, per . Edit any value.

The resulting footprint Result

Which input drives this measure?

All 16 measures · live result vs the validated study

A green check means the calculator reproduces the published study value exactly.

Measure	Unit	Calculator	Study value	Match
Overall single score	Pt	—	—

Method: SOLARA LCA engine (Impact = Σ quantity × factor). Data: Farm32 EF study (Springtide / SOLARA); Fresh Produce PEFCR (2026); EF 3.1 (adapted) V1.04; SimaPro 10.3; ecoinvent 3.11 cut-off. Per-input factors are screening-grade and not a PEFCR compliance substitute.