Click to EnlargeThis weekend the Almond Board of California is running an ad in an insertion for USA Today readers in New York, Washington, DC and Los Angeles about organizations working to reduce their carbon footprint. The insertion aims to “highlight leaders who have been putting in the extra effort to make their companies and products more sustainable and environmentally friendly.”
For our part, as our ad notes, we’ve funded a lifecycle assessment of almond trees, which was published recently in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. The study found that almond trees in California absorb and store significant amounts of greenhouse gas throughout their lifespans. And as the almond community continues and does even more to use its coproducts from producing and harvesting almonds—like hulls, shells and other tree biomass—they’ll further contribute to becoming carbon neutral, or even carbon negative if policy changes and production advancements work hand in hand.
The study underscores that when you eat almonds, you’re choosing more than just a highly nutritious food. As we prepare for our annual industry conference next week, we look forward to sharing more information about our industry’s environmentally related initiatives. In the meantime, we welcome you to visit almondsustainability.org, and to read more about our lifecycle assessment study.
