Thanks to the MC0 project by Interreg-Alcotra, the LISE tool is guiding the flavours and fragrances supply chain towards decarbonisation.

Fragrance is one of the elements that makes up a person's identity: whether it has citrus or floral notes, everyone has their favourite. Behind every fragrance, however, lies a complex supply chain — that of flavours and perfumes — which begins with the cultivation or synthesis of raw materials, moves through extraction and transformation processes, and ends with the packaging and distribution of the finished product. Like so many other sectors, it is now being called upon to reduce its environmental impact in order to contribute to the European Union's climate goals.

The fragrance industry, too, is looking to the European Green Deal as an opportunity to accelerate the transition. For instance, in the document EU Green Deal: policy recommendations from the fragrance industry, covering the period 2022–2024, the International Fragrance Association (Ifra) highlights the need to support businesses along this journey with concrete tools capable of combining competitiveness, innovation and sustainability. The challenge is to cut emissions and resource consumption while maintaining the capacity for innovation. For the supply chain, however, this is no easy goal to achieve.

A study published in the scientific journal Green Chemistry shows that the environmental impact of an ingredient depends not only on whether it is of natural or synthetic origin, but on its entire life cycle: the cultivation of raw materials, production processes, use of solvents, energy consumption, production yields and transport can all have very different effects on the final carbon footprint. For this reason, the researchers explain, it is increasingly important to adopt Life Cycle Assessment tools, which make it possible to identify the genuinely most impactful phases of production.

It is precisely in this context that Mission Carb0 (MC0) comes in — a project funded by the Interreg France-Italia Alcotra programme, created to guide Italian and French small and medium-sized enterprises through a structured decarbonisation pathway.

The project involves four production supply chains — agri-food, mechatronics, mountain services, and flavours and fragrances — with a clear objective: to help companies understand their climate impact and turn sustainability into a competitive advantage. To achieve this, MC0 has developed L.I.S.E. (Limita i tuoi impatti e supervisiona le tue emissioni — Limit your impacts and monitor your emissions), a platform that enables businesses to calculate their corporate carbon footprint, carry out ESG diagnostics, and analyse both direct and indirect emissions generated throughout the entire supply chain. This is not simply a matter of measuring emissions, but of providing companies with a snapshot of their starting point and the tools to build an improvement roadmap — one that is now within reach of all SMEs in the four sectors under analysis.

In the flavours and fragrances sector, MC0 has engaged around fifteen companies, bringing a number of common elements to light. Here too, the analysis carried out through LISE confirms that the most significant share of the climate footprint does not come from production facilities, but from indirect emissions. For 69 per cent of the companies analysed, the highest-impact category relates to purchases and expenditure — that is, the sourcing of raw materials and supply chain components. This is followed by business travel and freight transport, which together account for another significant share of emissions.

The first measures proposed to companies include strengthening collaboration with suppliers to obtain more accurate environmental data, introducing purchasing criteria that also take into account the carbon footprint of raw materials, wider adoption of life cycle assessments, and a review of logistics with a preference for less emissions-intensive modes of transport wherever possible. Alongside these aspects, the importance of eco-design and process innovation also emerges — tools that make it possible to reduce environmental impact from the very earliest stages of product development.

The experience gained through MC0 demonstrates that decarbonising the flavours and fragrances sector depends on a better understanding of the supply chain and on the ability to translate the data obtained into operational decisions. Because, as both the project analysis and international studies make clear, the sector's future competitiveness will increasingly hinge on the capacity to innovate while reducing environmental impact. And that means looking beyond the walls of individual production facilities and engaging the entire supply chain in a shared decarbonisation journey.

1. ASTELIA /Laboratoire Astelia- Créateur et fabriquant de produits innovants

1. BLH /Fournisseur en matières premières aromatiques – BLH

1. ERCO/Créateur de parfums et d'arômes | Mouans-Sartoux | ERCO

1. EXPRESSIONS AROMATIQUES/Expressions Aromatiques | Arômes naturels, de synthèse et biologiques

1. IPRA FRANCE/Groupe – IPRA | Fabricant d'arômes et parfums

1. JOSEMARD/Fabricant d'arômes alimentaires et de granités – Josemard Arômes