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Carbon footprints and ESG for food, drink and manufacturing Know Where Your Carbon Comes From.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 footprints and EcoVadis, Sedex, B Corp and SBTi submissions, worked through by Dr Nigel Davies, a plant scientist and brewer.

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35 years
in malting and brewing1
Top 100
The Manufacturer magazine, 20162
5 days
for a typical first footprint model1
Fig. 1 Malting barley’s footprint across every scope, in Nigel’s 2020 paper. The 16 solid grains of 28 are the 57% upstream.3

Recent work

Signed by Dr Nigel Davies.

Reports go out under his name, with the method, data sources and uncertainty written down.

Cover of the Carbon Footprint Analysis 2025 for Broadway Colours
Broadway Colours Carbon Footprint Analysis 2025: a 38-page scope 1 to 3 report, its second annual footprint.4
A page of the Broadway Colours report: a doughnut chart of the location-based footprint, with scope 3 upstream at 88.5%
Inside the report Section 5: scopes 1 to 3, counted location-based and market-based.
First page of Maltdoctor's verification of the scope 1 to 3 carbon footprint data for Muntons, March 2025
Muntons plc His former employer: Maltdoctor’s verification of its scope 1 to 3 footprint for 2024, March 2025.5

Five steps to your first footprint

Charged at a daily rate, with a quotation for your job first.

  1. Brief the team

    What a footprint is, and what not to worry about.

  2. Agree the audience

    Who will read the numbers, and why.

  3. Gather the data

    What to collect, and where a sound estimate will do.

  4. Build and report

    Your first model, written up for stakeholders.

  5. Plan the cuts

    Aimed at the most significant areas first.

What Nigel does

One Footprint. Every Platform.

Build your carbon data once, properly, and it answers each customer’s questionnaire in turn.

  • Carbon footprint

    Scope 1, 2 and 3, mapped from your invoices, spend and supplier data, with a plan to cut it.

  • EcoVadis

    Evidence gathered and the submission managed, theme by theme.

  • Sedex

    The supplier self-assessment, and the evidence behind it, for retail customers.

  • B Corp

    Impact data and the climate action plan the new standards ask for.

  • Science Based Targets

    Targets set, documented and submitted for validation, as big supermarkets now ask.

  • IFRS S1 and S2, UK SRS, CSRD

    Climate disclosures for listed customers, and CSRD’s double materiality for EU buyers.

Also: climate risk and water scarcity reports, ESG strategy, and carbon literacy and ESG training.

Carbon footprints

Start With a Map of Your Carbon.

Scope 1 is what your own sites and vehicles burn or leak, scope 2 the power you buy, and scope 3 everything that comes in or goes out. Where it sits decides what to fix first.

Two real footprints, two very different maps

Fig. 2 A product’s footprint and a whole company’s, by scope: malting barley, from Nigel’s 2020 paper,3 and Maltdoctor’s 2025 report for Broadway Colours.4

Where a manufacturer’s carbon sits

Fig. 3 Broadway Colours’ 2025 footprint, 5,970 tonnes CO2e (location-based), each tile sized by its tonnes. The blue tiles are what it buys in (scope 3 upstream); pale blue is deliveries to customers, grey-green its electricity, and the thin dark strip is scope 1, at 0.2%.4

Where it started

The Biggest Saving Cost Nothing.

Years before customers asked, Nigel built Muntons, the Suffolk maltster, a malting barley carbon calculator it calls the first of its kind.6 Most of malt’s carbon came from the farm, and most of that from nitrogen fertiliser.3

Low-carbon fertiliser cut the barley’s footprint by a quarter at no extra cost, and went into the procurement contracts.

That is what a footprint is for: finding the change worth making.

What each change saved, in kg CO2e per tonne of malting barley at the farm gate

  1. 20% fewer tractor hours

    3 kg to 300 kg

  2. 20% less nitrogen fertiliser

    39 kg to 264 kg

  3. 20% higher yield

    50 kg to 253 kg

  4. Low-carbon nitrogen fertiliser, at no extra cost

    78 kg to 225 kg

Fig. 4 The footprint of a tonne of malting barley at the farm gate, from a base of 303 kg CO2e, after each change. Source: Nigel Davies, 2020.3

About Nigel

Dr Nigel Davies

BSc PhD FIFST Dipl Brew FIBD

A plant scientist (PhD, Plant Biology and Physiology) and brewer (IBD Diploma in Brewing, with distinction). Director, Maltdoctor Ltd, Stowmarket. He has also acted as an expert witness on damaged grain and malt cargoes.1

  1. 2005

    Joins the board of Muntons, where he worked for almost 25 years in all.

  2. 2018

    Honorary Associate Professor, University of Nottingham School of Biosciences.

  3. 2020

    Starts Maltdoctor alongside his role at Muntons.

  4. 2022

    Leaves Muntons as Director of Technical and Sustainability to run Maltdoctor full time.

First page of Nigel Davies’ paper Sustainability from Farm to Malt, MBAA Technical Quarterly, 2020
His 2020 paper “Apparent complexity should never prevent a business from calculating a carbon footprint.” Sustainability from Farm to Malt, MBAA Technical Quarterly.3

“His passion for making our industry a greener one has spearheaded us into leading the way and winning accolades such as our recent platinum EcoVadis Medal.”

Mark Tyldesley, Managing Director, Muntons, on Nigel’s departure, January 20226

Questions

Questions That Stop People Starting.

The questions clients bring to Nigel first, with his answers.

Where do I start?

With who is asking for your numbers, and by when. That sets the scope, the data to collect and the order to do things in.

My suppliers can’t, or won’t, give me scope 3 data. Now what?

Start from what you spend. UK government spend-based factors give a first scope 3 figure. Nigel finds it often lands within 20% of real data, and errs on the high side. Swap in supplier data as it arrives.

What if I’m not sure my data is accurate?

Handling data and uncertainty is the day job. Data you are 80% sure of is often enough for sound business decisions, and the report says where the gaps are.

Some colleagues aren’t convinced. How do I bring them with me?

Start with the business case: customers, contracts and costs. A 90-minute carbon literacy and ESG session, online or in person, helps a team agree what the numbers mean.

Request a quote

You Can Do It.

“Don’t worry, I have been here before you.”

Nigel Davies

Tell Nigel who wants your carbon data, and by when. He will reply with a quotation.

Prefer email? maltdoctor@maltdoctor.co.uk

Step 1 of 2: what you need

What do you need help with?
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