The Power of LCA for Data-Driven Differentiation
Use Verifiable Data to Differentiate Sustainable Products
In today's competitive food and beverage market, demonstrating credible sustainability credentials is essential. To stand out, you need data - not just commitments.
This article explains how Sustained enables food and beverage businesses to produce side-by-side environmental comparisons of products using robust, product-level lifecycle assessment (LCA) data. These comparisons help brands back up sustainability claims, support internal decision-making, and tell clear, credible stories to customers.
Make Sustainability Verifiable
With growing scrutiny around greenwashing, companies need to show, not just tell, what makes their product better for the planet.
Sustained’s product comparison feature allows you to model and compare the environmental impact of two or more products across multiple indicators. Whether you're using a lower-impact ingredient, introducing new energy efficient machinery, or reformulating a recipe, you can now quantify the effect of those changes and demonstrate the difference.
One customer, a producer of innovative food alternatives, used Sustained to compare their product to a conventional benchmark using publicly available data. This allowed them to clearly communicate environmental benefits with confidence.
Go Beyond One-Off Analyses
Unlike traditional LCA reports, which are often slow and static, Sustained connects directly to your existing product data infrastructure. That means your comparisons stay up to date as formulations, sourcing, or packaging evolves — without needing to start from scratch.
You can compare products across a wide range of criteria, including:
- Overall Impact Score (Total Impact Points)
- Consumer Rating (A–G scale)
- Environmental impact by category (e.g. climate change, water usage, land use)
- Impact by lifecycle stage (e.g. raw materials, production, distribution, end-of-life) and by process (e.g. which supplier of an ingredient, energy in a facility)
Sustained also highlights which parts of the product or lifecycle contribute most to its impact for example, ingredients vs. packaging, or distribution vs. production.
Communicating Your Sustainable Story
Product comparison reports support teams across your business:
- R&D & Innovation: Optimise products and menus by identifying lower-impact alternatives
- Sustainability & Reporting: Respond to regulatory or retailer requests with clear comparisons
- Marketing & Claims: Build trustworthy sustainability messaging based on real data
With actionable, product-level insights, Sustained helps teams make informed choices, reduce environmental impact, and differentiate in a crowded marketplace.
How to Use the Comparison Feature
Using the comparison tool is simple:
- Go to the Products section in your Sustained Impact dashboard
- Click the ‘Compare’ toggle
- Select the products you want to compare
- Click ‘Compare Products’ to generate your report
The comparison report will show a breakdown of total impact, environmental categories, lifecycle stages, and key contributors — helping you understand what drives your impact and where you can improve.
Sustainability That Stands Up to Scrutiny
Sustainable products need sustainable proof. With Sustained’s comparison feature, you can show exactly how your products stack up and why that matters.
Whether you’re preparing for a customer meeting, developing a new product, or building customer trust, robust comparison data helps you cut through the noise and stand out with confidence.
Book a demo to see the comparison feature in action, or log in to your dashboard to try it now.
