Envitecpolis offers calculation and expert services in the areas of energy, finance, and the environment for participants in the food chain. With over 15 years of history, the company has been a pioneer in its field, providing accurate information on the profitability of economic and investment decisions, as well as environmental assessments such as carbon footprint and biodiversity. Envitecpolis has assisted various players in the food chain, from small farms to large food companies, in promoting sustainability alongside profitability.
The company’s pride lies in offering tailored solutions to each client and aiding them in decision-making. Envitecpolis aims to support the entire food chain in improving sustainability and building a collectively more sustainable future.
Climate change is altering the calculation of the food chain
In 2018, the discussion around climate change gained renewed momentum with the release of the IPCC’s climate report. In Finland, this sparked intense debates, especially concerning food and its production. Conversations emphasized what should be consumed and how much emissions different production methods generate. The lack of comprehensive calculation data complicated the discussions, often relying on international averages or rough estimates.
As specialized in calculation, Envitecpolis was already engaged with all actors in the food chain, and customers turned to them for factual information about farm operations and Finnish food production. Farms needed to understand their own situations and find ways to make an impact. This need prompted action, initially through pilot calculations. The challenge was to create a calculation that was methodologically accurate, easy to implement, and scalable for a large number of farms.
Challenges in calculation
Envitecpolis has conducted thousands of greenhouse gas assessments ranging from individual farms to products. While the calculation may seem straightforward at first glance, there are challenges associated with gathering the required data. Everything relies on the information obtained and collected from the farms, which is not always readily available. The diversity of the food chain made this particularly challenging, as behind a single food company, there may be hundreds or thousands of farms from which site-specific data is needed. There is also a wealth of data points to be collected for the calculation.
Improvements were also sought in the calculation process itself. Even with hundreds of data points collected, the calculation of the gathered information took hours, and in some cases, even days, depending on the quality of the initial data.
“One of the main drivers was a challenge posed by our clients: Can we meet the need when there are tens of thousands of farms”. This guided our development work. We recognized that there was a clear demand for such a service in the food chain, where we daily operate with farms and food industry,” says Senja Arffman, Envitecpolis’ Senior Advisor, environmental footprints.
EnvitecVisio
With Codemate, EnvitecVisio was implemented—a digital platform for environmental assessments of farms, including carbon calculations, farm and product-specific reporting, and data management. This platform allows the collection of high-quality, farm-specific data regularly, even from a large number of farms, while maintaining methodological accuracy. For farmers, EnvitecVisio is user-friendly, enabling them to track their farm’s results and progress.
“At the beginning, we strongly focused on greenhouse gas asssessments because the conversation at that time was leaning in that direction. However, we saw EnvitecVision as a tool that could gather diverse information, manage data, and report on farm operations. The goal was to create a system that addresses current needs but is also open to future challenges.”
Senja Arffman
Senior advisor Environmental footprints
EnvitecVisio has simplified farm-specific data collection, consolidating all information in one place. Emphasis was placed on the ease of data input. Automation has significantly improved the efficiency of the calculation process, reducing manual work to a minimum. What used to take hours or even days for calculations with hundreds of data points can now be done in seconds. Anssi Lammila, Senior Advisor, EnvitecVisio, expresses delight: “In a single calculation, we save hours, and when there are dozens or hundreds of calculations, it’s a significant change. Our experts can analyze results more quickly, and we can serve more farms.”
The decision to implement the platform with open-source code and a focus on flexibility and easy future development has proven to be successful. After the launch, the platform has been continuously developed, adapting to customer needs and changing methodology requirements. “Continuous development is easy when the foundation is built according to our needs,” says Anssi.
“It has been a pleasure and impressive to see how Codemate has embraced and mastered a new subject area. Combined with Codemate’s strong technical expertise, this has made the progress of the project smooth. The foundation of our collaboration has been good communication – it requires a comprehensive understanding, which Codemate has had from the beginning.”
Anssi Lammila
Senior advisor, EnvitecVisio
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