Measuring Our Impact: A Deep Dive into Acme’s 2025 Climate Assessment

-       Aquaculture inputs: Feed production, farm energy use, and emissions from fish growth

-       Processing: Energy for slaughtering, filleting, and initial processing in Chile

-       Transportation:

o   Refrigerated ocean freight from Puerto Montt, Chile, to the port of Wilmington, North Carolina

o   Air freight from Santiago, Chile to the port of Miami, Florida

The system boundaries were designed to align with Scope 3 Category 1 requirements under the GHG Protocol while maintaining consistency with internationally recognized LCA methodology.¹

While we recognize that LCAs are effective tools for analyzing a wide range of environmental impact categories – including biodiversity, water, land-use change, and waste – this assessment was conducted specifically to quantify greenhouse gas emissions. Because LCAs translate complex supply chains with dynamic inputs into a single emissions estimate, results depend heavily on modeling choices such as system boundaries, allocation methods, and data sources. As a result, Acme’s LCA may differ from other analyses using similar functional units.

The Findings:

4.97 kg CO₂e per kg of salmon (frozen, ocean freight)

11.1 kg CO₂e per kg of salmon (fresh, air freight)

For every kilogram of farmed Chilean Atlantic salmon we source, process, and transport frozen via cargo ship to the U.S., approximately 4.97 kg of CO₂e are emitted. Flying one kilogram of fresh salmon to the U.S. emits 11.1kg of CO₂e – more than double the emissions of shipping frozen salmon.

To put this in context:

Emission Sources:

Breaking down the LCA results into lifecycle stages provides insight into where emissions “hotspots” occur across the supply chain. The major contributing categories are shown below:

-       Fish feed production and farm energy usage (85%)

-       Transportation (5%)

-       Processing (5%)

-       Packaging and other inputs (5%)

This distribution aligns closely with existing research on aquaculture impacts, which shows that the majority of emissions occur upstream, before the fish even reach Acme’s processing facilities. This finding also reinforces a critical insight as we consider our role in reducing our GHG footprint – that the biggest decarbonization opportunities lie in supply chain engagement and other upstream efforts to reduce overall impacts.

The Full Picture of Scope 3 Emissions

While we've measured Scopes 1 and 2 emissions for several years, 2025 marked the first time we included all material Scope 3 categories as defined by the GHG Protocol. This gave us a complete picture of our value chain emissions—both upstream and downstream.

Defining Scopes:

-       Scope 1: Direct emissions from sources we own or control (refrigeration, company vehicles, on-site fuel combustion)

-       Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity and energy

-       Scope 3: All other indirect emissions in our value chain—from manufacturing inputs, transportation, business travel, waste management, employee commuting, and even the eventual disposal of our products and packaging. The GHG Protocol defines 15 Scope 3 categories.² After a materiality analysis, Acme determined that 10 of these 15 are relevant to our operations.

Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased Goods and Services:

Like most manufacturers in the seafood industry, Scope 3 Category 1: Purchased Goods and Services is by far our largest emissions source, representing 57% of our total Scope 3 footprint.

This category includes everything we purchase to run our business, such as:

1. Raw materials and ingredients used to produce the finest smoked fish products, such as seafood, salt, spices, woodchips, etc.

2. Packaging materials like boxes, films, labels, and Expanded Polystyrene (aka Styrofoam)

3. Manufacturing and operational equipment, such as forklifts and slicing machines, office supplies, cleaning products, and PPE

4. Any third-party services and software contracts used by Acme

Among all the procurement categories listed above, Atlantic salmon represents the lion’s share of Acme’s spend-based emissions. This probably makes sense for a company known for making the best lox in town, but it was valuable to confirm this assumption with data.

From Spend-Based to Product-Specific Analysis:

Once we understood that our Atlantic salmon supply chain accounted for the largest source of Scope 3 emissions, we decided to commission an LCA to “double-click” on it and understand the specific impacts of that product.

Traditionally, Category 1 calculations rely on spend-based emission factors—essentially, multiplying dollars spent on goods by an average emissions intensity for that industry or product category. For example: "For every $1 spent on a product, X kg CO₂e are emitted."

While we used this calculation for some of our purchases, we wanted to get more granular for the Atlantic salmon. Rather than relying on this spend-based approach, we integrated our LCA-derived emissions factor directly into our Category 1 calculations. That calculation looked like:

4.97 kg CO₂e x total kg of salmon purchased in 2024 = a weight-based, product-specific calculation that accurately reflects the emissions of our supply chain

This materially improved the accuracy of our Scope 3 accounting by shifting from financial proxies to weight-based, product-specific emissions modeling. For other purchased goods where emissions were less material to our GHG footprint (such as packaging, ingredients, and supplies), we continued to use industry-standard emission factors and spend-based calculations. But for our core Atlantic salmon products, which represent the majority of Category 1 emissions, we now have precise data that reflects Acme’s specific business model.

Other Notable Categories:

While Category 1 dominates our footprint, several other categories are material to Acme's emissions and warrant attention. The two next largest, making up 16% and 10% of our total emissions, respectively, are Category 4: Upstream Transportation and Distribution and Category 15: Investments.

Neither comes as a surprise. Our supply chain relies on a complex global logistics network – we source raw materials, ingredients, and packaging from around the world. Category 4 captures the emissions associated with logistics activities such as ocean freight and flying fish from Chile, domestic trucking, and cold storage for our finished products.

Category 15: Under the GHG Protocol, Acme also accounts for our proportional share of emissions from our investments, partnerships, and subsidiaries, reflecting our financial stake and influence in their operations.

Decarbonization

So, putting all of this together, we found that the majority of emissions often occur outside direct operational control. Unlike Scopes 1 and 2, where we can directly invest in equipment upgrades, renewable energy, and efficiency improvements, Scope 3 requires influence, not control. We do not own the salmon farms, manufacture the packaging, or operate the cargo ships carrying seafood to our smokehouses.

This makes Scope 3 decarbonization fundamentally different. It requires:

1. Working with stakeholders in the aquaculture industry to improve feed efficiency, increase renewable energy adoption, and reduce emissions reductions at the farm level.

2. Building trust with our supply chain partners to improve the quality of our emissions measurements and collaborate on reduction strategies

3. Participating in industry coalitions, including pre-competitive initiatives such as Sea Pact, and sharing the findings of our research (including this blog post).

4. Prioritizing and rewarding suppliers who are investing in lower-carbon practices.

5. Continuing to educate our consumers about the climate impacts of the seafood industry and realigning existing perceptions to help guide informed consumer behavior.

This year’s full Scope 3 inventory assessment, supported by product-level LCA data, establishes Acme’s most comprehensive baseline to date. Going forward, we will continue to focus on the aforementioned strategies to reduce our environmental impact.

The path to decarbonization in seafood manufacturing is complex and highly interdependent. By pairing corporate GHG accounting with product-level LCA analysis, we now have greater clarity on where our efforts are most needed and will be most impactful. This clarity is critical for us to move from data analysis to meaningful action – in other words, from measurement to management.

Citations:

1) https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/Chapter1.pdf

2) https://ghgprotocol.org/sites/default/files/standards/Scope3_Calculation_Guidance_0.pdf