Below in this text is the data for our greenhouse (GHG) emissions calculated with CO2 equivalents  (CO2eq), and the environmental footprint of our operations plus the nutrient release of nitrogen and phosphorus.  Method and data for various calculation methods can be found here. 

Skretting Norway still manages to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases, but not at the same dramatic rate as previous years. The total emissions were reduced by 3.9 percent from 2022 to 2023. In the same period our production increased by 2.2 percent making it harder to reduce the total emissions. The Carbon footprint per kg feed was reduced with 4.5 percent from 2022 so that Skretting feed in 2023 had an emission factor of 1.69 kg CO₂eq per kg feed.

New this year is that we will report according to the Forest, Land and Agriculture Science-Based Target-Setting Guidance (the SBTi FLAG Guidance). In 2024 we will update our SBTi targets to commit to the FLAG science-based targets.

The CO₂eq reduction for 1 kg of feed at factory gate is reduced with 48 % from our baseline year 2018 to 2023. This is the major part of a salmon's scope 3.

From 2022 to 2023 our production increased by 2.2 percent making it harder to reduce the total emissions. The total emissions were reduced with 21,155 tonne CO₂eq from 2022 to 2023 (3.9 percent). The Carbon footprint per kg feed was 1.69 kg CO₂eq in 2023, a reduction of 4.5 percent.

Converting from natural gas to electricity increased emissions
We experienced a substantially shift from scope 1 to scope 2 in 2023. Scope 1 was reduced with 17 percent from 2022 to 2023, but scope 2 was increased with 59 percent for absolute emissions of CO₂eq. The reason was that we transferred one of our boilers at the plant in Averøy from natural gas to electricity mid 2023.

To some this might seem strange, that emissions increase when you go from the fossil fuel natural gas to electricity. Especially since most of Norway’s electricity production is renewable energy coming from hydropower generators.

But Norway is part of the European electricity grid where electricity could be generated from fossil fuels like coal or gas. This results that electricity in Norway has a larger emission factor than natural gas since we have to use market-based calculation for scope 2 and not location-based emissions factors (as mandated by Norwegian governments). So our absolute emissions actually increases when we went from fossil natural gas to electricity.

In addition,  the war in Ukraine has increased the use of coal and gas in European electricity production. This contributed to the increase of the emissions factor from 405 to 502 gram CO₂eq per kWh from 2021 to 2022 (the latest official number that had to be used for 2023).

We still think it is the right way moving forward to convert our production from fossil fuel to electricity, even though we take “a hit” for the emission calculations now.

The days of low hanging fruits for Scope 3 reductions are probably over
The major reduction in scope 3 that was achieved from 2018 to 2022 where we picked the low hanging fruits, will probably be harder to replicate going forward. But we will keep up our efforts to reduce our scope 3 by working with our suppliers and consider emissions factors when formulating feeds.

Science based targets initiative (SBTi)
Through our mother company Nutreco, Skretting has committed to the science-based target initiative (SBTi) with a 30 % reduction of CO2eq for scope 1 and 2, and a 39 % reduction for scope 3 towards 2030 with 2018 as the baseline year. Several of Skretting Norway's customers have also made SBTi commitments, and our feed is their biggest GHG emission factor. To help our customers meet their targets for absolute GHG emissions— including their planned production growth for salmon and trout. 

Our SBTi targets will soon be updated according to the new FLAG guidance. 

The impact of feed
Feed plays an essential role in ensuring the health and wellbeing of farmed fish, and can greatly improve the efficiency of the aquaculture process. While gains are made in optimising feed efficiency, feed also contributes one of the biggest environmental impacts.

We will continue to improve our own operations (scope 1 and 2), but the main footprint of feed comes from the raw materials we use. So to further reduce our footprint our reduction strategy can be dived into three main areas:

1) Move to low carbon ingredients

We will replace ingredients with a high carbon footprints and high volume with low footprint ingredients by using circular ingredients, novel ingredients and ‘conventional’ low impact ingredients. This potential is already demonstrated in several cases.

2) Land use reduction

A major part of our GHG emissions is due to land use change, and this will be reduced. Land transformation affects carbon stocks and can result in carbon emitted that was stored in soil or plants (e.g. deforestation). That is why we have demanded that our suppliers of soy protein concentrate (SPC) from Brazilian beans must commit to a soy supply chain free from illegal and /or legal deforestation and conversion, using a cut-off date of August 2020, which they have all accepted.

We also encourage our suppliers to monitor and verify if their farmers have not done any deforestation or conversion for the past 20 years, as is the 20 year amortization period for the standardized calculation method: PAS-2050. This has been a major contributing factor for the massive reductions from 2018 to 2022.

3) Supplier engagement

We truly believe in supplier engagement to fight the climate crisis. That is why we will continue to engage with suppliers to collect and reduce GHG emissions in our supply chain. We will ask them to commit to the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) because that will level the playing field since we will have the same goals using the same language. In addition we will push to get primary data for products so we can learn from each other and gain a deeper understanding of the supply chain. We will be a knowledgeable partner for both suppliers and customers, adding value to their reduction journey.

Carbon footprint of Skretting Norway's fish feed

Carbon footprint (CO₂eq) per kg feed economic allocated with LUC (PEFCR standard)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Scope 1 (manufacturing process. direct GHG)	0.02	0.02	0.02	0.02	0.02	0.03
Scope 2 (manufacturing process. indirect GHG)*	0.06	0.04	0.04	0.04	0.04	0.05
Scope 3 (value chain. indirect GHG)*	1.61	1.71	2.33	2.58	2.76	3.19
Total CO2eq per 1 kg feed GHG footprint at factory gate	1.69	1.77	2.39	2.64	2.82	3.27

* A market-based calculation for electricity is used for every year

Carbon footprint (CO₂eq) absolute tonne emissions, economic allocated with LUC (PEFCR standard)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Scope 1 (manufacturing process. direct GHG)	10,850	13,082	13,211	14,203	13,843	14,906
Scope 2 (manufacturing process. indirect GHG)*	37,602	23,636	23,960	24,098	22,111	30,313
Scope 3 (value chain. indirect GHG)*	973,536	1,006,425	1,369,536	1,542,762	1,534,611	1,803,468
Total absolute tonne CO2eq GHG footprint at factory gate	1,021,988	1,043,143	1,406,707	1,581,063	1,570,565	1,848,687

* A market-based calculation for electricity is used for every year

The increase in scope 2 from 2022 to 2023 and the decrease in scope 1, is because one of our boilers at the plant in Averøy was transformed from natural gas to electricity mid 2023. Since we use market-based calculation for scope 2 and not location-based, electricity in Norway has a larger emission factor than natural gas. So our absolute emissions actually increases when we went from fossil natural gas to electricity.

FLAG Breakdown of scope 3 (CO₂eq) per kg feed economic allocated with LUC. (PEFCR standard)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
[Non-FLAG] Climate change fossil†	0.71	-	-	-	-	-
[Non-FLAG] Climate change land use change (LUC)	-	0.35	0.77	0.93	1.10	1.53
[FLAG] Climate Change LUC††	0.35	-	-	-	-	-
[FLAG] Climate Change Land management†††	0.45	-	-	-	-	-
[FLAG] Carbon removals and storage	NA	-	-	-	-	-
Inbound logistics	0.10	0.07	0.09	0.10	0.10	0.10
Scope 3, Climate change kg CO2eq per kg feed	1.61	-	-	-	-	-

† Excluding LUC, peat oxidation and land management emissions
†† Including peat oxidation
††† Non-LUC land-related emissions

Breakdown of Scope 3 (CO₂eq) absolute tonne emissions, economic allocated with LUC, (PEFCR standard)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Raw materials [Non-FLAG] Climate change fossil‡	426,471	-	-	-	-	-
Raw materials [FLAG] Climate Change LUC‡‡	160,749	-	-	-	-	-
Raw materials [FLAG] Climate change - peat	51,743	-	-	-	-	-
Raw materials [FLAG] Climate Change Land management‡‡‡	268,108	-	-	-	-	-
Raw materials [FLAG] Carbon removals and storage	NA	-	-	-	-	-
Total raw materials absolute tonne CO2eq	907,071	961,069	1,316,349	1,482,675	1,478,803	1,747,011
Inbound logistics	60,054	40,815	52,919	59,839	55,696	56,458
Packaging	5,945	4,147	-	-	-	-
Air travel employees	330	228	84	91	-	-
Fossil car travel employees	106	154	177	157	111	-
Electric car travel employees**	30	12	8	0	1	-
Total Scope 3 absolute tonne CO2eq GHG footprint at factory gate	973,536	1,006,425	1,369,536	1,542,762	1,534,611	1,803,468
Outbound logistics	23,901	23,706	22,160	22,883	19,828	-
Total Scope 3 absolute tonne CO2eq including outbound logistics***	997,437	1,030,131	1,391,696	1,565,645	1,554,439	-

‡ Excluding LUC, peat oxidation and land management emissions
‡‡ Excluding peat oxidation
‡‡‡ Non-LUC land-related emissions
* A market-based calculation for electricity is used for every year
** Including fuel. vehicle production. maintenance and road emissions for fossil and electric cars with market-based calculations for electricity
*** Outbond logistics only covers delivery by boat

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More data and method description

The European Union's Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) requires carbon footprint to be reported with the economic allocation method including land use change (LUC). So, the tables above are our primary calculation method. We also use market-based calculation for electricity as this is the calculation Norwegian authorities demands from Norwegian power suppliers.

For your convenience we have included more data on a separate page.

• Method
• CO₂eq economic allocated with LUC
• CO₂eq economic allocated without LUC
• Explanation of CO₂eq calculations method

Click here for method and more data

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The environmental footprint of our operations

Skretting Norway operates in accordance with the Pollution Control Act (Act of 13 March 1981 No.6 Concerning Protection Against Pollution and Concerning Waste). Each operating plant has permits related to emissions to air, effluents to water and ground and handling of waste. Detailed description of permits for each operating plant together with historical records of emissions can be found here http://www.norskeutslipp.no/

Energy consumption, water and waste in operations

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	Unit
Energy consumption	212.2	208.4	210.8	212.0	217.7	229.4	kWh/tonn
Water withdrawal	350.4	341.5	345.3	385.0	472.6	532.7	liters/tonn
Waste generation	4.3	4.3	4	4.7	6.1	5.7	kg per tonne

Absolute CO2eq emission per energy carrier from operations (tonne)

Through our mother company Nutreco, Skretting has committed to a 30 % reduction of CO2eq for scope 1 and 2 in compliance with the science-based target initiative (SBTi) with 2018 as our baseline year. The reduction from 2018 to 2022 is 19 % for scope 1 and 2. 

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Natural Gas	3,219	3,480	3,488	4,654	4,423	4,816
Diesel	288	283	267	293	254	269
LPG	1,475	1,372	1,365	1,387	1,227	1,238
LNG	5,868	7,947	8,091	7,869	7,939	8,583
Electricity*	37,602	23,636	23,960	24,098	22,111	30,313
Absolute carbon emission (tonne)	48,452	36,718	37,170	38,301	35,953	45,219

* A market-based calculation for electricity is used for every year. Click here for a more detailed explanation of market-based vs. location-based calculation.

Nutrient release

Nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen are essential for life and these elements occur naturally in the water column of both fresh and marine environments. In the environment they function as nutrients for algae growth.

Skretting's nutrient release calculator offers data for customers, specific feeds and/or for individual fish farm locations based on the delivered feed.

Skretting has implemented a new nutrient release model that gives our customers emission values for their own feed, even for their own specific locations. We calculate emissions for nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon. The tool is avaliable on our client net.

Disclaimer
The provided carbon footprint data are based on internal calculations following the core guiding principles of the standard PEFCR Feed for Food Producing Animals (2018), but are not based on fully compliant PEFCR studies. Although Skretting has taken care to ensure that the information contained herein is as accurate as possible and up to date, Skretting does not warrant the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information. The values have not been externally verified. The information provided is for informational purposes only and is intended for internal business use only. The reader is solely responsible for any interpretation or use of the material contained herein. The footprint data are subject to change (e.g. due to ongoing database development or better supply chain information). Furthermore, cradle-to-gate footprint values are not allowed to be used for comparison or comparative assertions among each other or with other feed footprint data in accordance with international LCA standards. Animal feed is an intermediate product in the food production chain and the footprint attached to it only reflects part of the life cycle. Without considering feed performance/ functionality and downstream impacts, comparison is neither allowed nor meaningful.