Purely Organic is the first organic egg brand in the UK to be certified Carbon Neutral by Carbon Trust, the Noble Foods brand said in a press release.

Noble Foods said it invested significant time and resources in the certification process, working with the entire Purely Organic producer base to gain the accreditation from the Carbon Trust, an expert partner for businesses to help them decarbonise.

“Across the board, producers and consumers agree that sustainability is extremely important," said Glenn Evans, Noble Foods’ Group environmental, health and safety manager. "Therefore, we believe it’s our responsibility to take a market-leading step forward in carbon reduction. Purely Organic was the natural choice to be certified carbon neutral, because it already has strong environmental credentials."

“Despite this, gaining our certification was a challenging process," Evans continued. "On farm, feed represents around 71% of all carbon emissions and therefore it is important to ensure that any carbon reduction initiatives take account of raw materials inputs of feed. With supply chain uncertainties and rising costs, further steps will undoubtedly be needed so that we continue to target this important area. We are committed to evolving our carbon reduction initiatives and supporting Purely Organic producers, as we continue to strive for further impactful changes across the Noble Foods portfolio.”

During the one-year project approval, The Carbon Trust assessed the CO2 emissions produced on each of the 13 Purely Organic farms, including their full supply chain – from pullet rearing to the disposal of the pulp packaging by the consumer. Each farm was given a unique carbon footprint which was collated by measuring the consumption of various components including feed, fuel and transport, giving a holistic indicator of the efficiency of each farms’ operations. This combined carbon total has been offset by harnessing the use of wind power. In a business-wide effort to reduce its carbon footprint even further, Noble Foods has also been trialling alternative sources of feed, including pulses grown locally on UK farms.

Becoming carbon neutral is one of many steps that Purley Organic hopes to take, with research and development already underway to understand other environmental initiatives for the brand to adopt.