Project

A comparative analysis of beet sugar and cane sugar life cycles

Producers of organic beet sugar in Germany face stiff competition from abroad. Although the issue of sustainability might represent an important advantage in favor of Germany-based production, reliable, independent studies on the relative ecological and social sustainability of organic beet sugar versus imported organic cane sugar are lacking. Given this lack of reliable sources, we compared the ecological and social impact of organic, beet-sugar production at Südzucker AG to the production of organic cane sugar imported from South America.

Our services

Selection of a South American producer of organic cane sugar
Development of representative life cycle inventories (data inventories) for organic beet sugar produced by Südzucker AG and organic cane sugar imported from South America
Calculation of the ecological and social impact of the two production operations (with respect to the relevant environmental-impact categories)
Comparison of ecological and social sustainability; compilation and assessment of the results
Documentation of the results