Environmental Footprint Category Rules for animal feed updated

FEFAC, the European Compound Feed Manufacturers’ Federation, has announced the publication of the updated Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) of Feed for Food-Producing Animals. The PEFCR Feed is available on the FEFAC website.

Environmental Footprint Category Rules for animal feed, updatedThe updated Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) of Feed for Food-Producing Animals were published on the European Compound Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) website on 14 February 2025. The ‘PEFCR Feed’ holds the methodology and rules for how to calculate the environmental footprint of compound feed. FEFAC explained that the update was primarily of technical nature, without significant changes to the methodology itself. The updated PEFCR Feed, which will also be made available on the European Commission’s Environmental Footprint Methods webpage, is valid until at least December 2026, by which time more clarity will be given as regards when a more substantial ‘full review’ is due. With help of input during the technical update procedure, FEFAC has already started with an inventory of possible improvements and welcomes further suggestions from experts in the coming years.

FEFAC President Pedro Cordero said: “The technical update of the PEFCR Feed was a formal necessity, but the restored validity is nonetheless of great importance. It reinforces FEFAC’s commitment to facilitating companies to move ahead with communicating the environmental performance of compound feed production, with the recently endorsed Green Feed Labelling Code and the GFLI Database as two other key pillars”.

FEFAC thanked the other participants in the PEFCR Feed Technical Secretariat, the review panel and the consultants from Mérieux NutriScience | Blonk for their contributions and essential guidance to completing the process. According to FEFAC announcement, soon also the newly developed PEFCR Marine Fish will be published, where FEFAC took part in the Technical Secretariat. With the PEFCR Marine Fish and the PEFCR Dairy there are will now be two categories of animal products with a published methodological framework for environmental footprinting endorsed by the European Community.