The climate footprint of ChoViva

Historically, extensive tracts of tropical rainforest have been cleared for cocoa cultivation.¹ Research indicates that between 1988 and 2008, the global cocoa sector drove the loss of an estimated 2 to 3 million hectares of this unique ecosystem.² This deforestation heavily impacted major growing regions, with countries like Ghana losing a substantial portion of their original rainforests.³

This loss of forest presents a significant environmental challenge. Because tropical rainforests absorb considerably more carbon dioxide per hectare than cocoa plantations, clearing them releases large amounts of stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Ultimately, this land-use change substantially increases the average greenhouse gas footprint of conventionally produced chocolate.

When measuring the climate impact of products, you will primarily encounter two terms: CO₂ and CO₂e. Here is how they are connected.

The carbon footprint¹, also called the climate footprint, describes the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that occur directly or indirectly during specific stages of a product's life cycle. How comprehensive such a footprint is depends on the system boundary chosen: depending on the calculation, individual phases are taken into account, such as the cultivation of ingredients or processing at the factory.

CO₂e¹ is used to determine the climate footprint. The emissions of different greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O), are compared based on their global warming potential (GWP). In the calculation, these emissions are aggregated, taking into account the quantity of each of these greenhouse gases and their global warming potential ("global warming potential" = GWP) over a period of 100 years relative to carbon dioxide (CO₂).

To determine our climate footprint, we work with inoqo: a company that helps food and beverage retailers measure the environmental impact of their products.

Every ChoViva recipe is analyzed by inoqo using "Life Cycle Assessment" (LCA), which is guided by the EU's "Product Environmental Footprint" (PEF) framework.

The LCA method measures a product's climate impact across one or more phases of its life cycle, expressed in CO₂e/kg. In our case, inoqo examines the production process of our ChoViva mass from cradle to factory gate (cradle-to-gate), meaning from the cultivation of ingredients such as sunflower and grape seeds, through their transport, to processing at the factory.

For example: our ChoViva Milk recipe (ChoViva Smooth) achieves a calculated CO₂e footprint of 2.81 kg CO₂e/kg, while an estimated comparison value for market-standard milk chocolate in Germany is 10.64 kg CO₂e/kg. This corresponds to a recipe saving of 7.83 kg CO₂e/kg (or -73.6%)*.

Since ChoViva is incorporated into products as an ingredient (for example, as a pastry glaze or filling), ChoViva's climate footprint does not include how much CO₂e is generated in creating the end product, or what the transport to our customer's factory or to the supermarket looks like. These factors fall within the end-product manufacturer's own calculation.

Naturally, we don't know how you get your ChoViva product home after buying it — whether by car, bike, or on foot. And we also don't know how the packaging is ultimately disposed of.

We currently don't account for emissions that are independent of production itself — things like the production facility's own operations, our employees' commutes to and from work, or general business activities such as product development, marketing, and research.