Our Story
In the autumn of 2008, the multinational consumer goods company Unilever was looking for practical advice on how it could help farmers in its global supply chains reduce their impact on the climate.
They turned to Prof. Pete Smith, professor of soils and global change at University of Aberdeen and coordinating lead author of IPCC’s 2007 assessment report, with one question: Would it be possible to take the global picture of opportunities for climate change mitigation, and translate it into a tool that creates assessments for an individual field, specific to every farmers’ situation?
They combined a simple greenhouse gas calculator Unilever had built with Aberdeen’s research and the Cool Farm Tool was born.
Since then the scope of the Cool Farm Tool has grown along with membership in the Alliance. We now span the globe with diverse supply-chains and companies using the Cool Farm Tool as a decision support tool for farmers and for reporting supply chain emissions and impacts.
