Key Takeaways
- “We are the largest database for food- and ag-specific emissions data,” said HowGood CPO Nina DePalma, adding the platform is purpose-built for the sector.
- HowGood uses a bottoms-up product carbon footprint approach, with dynamic factors and an internal Data Quality Score (DQS) to rate and improve measurements.
- Customer questions now span Scope 3, regulatory readiness (e.g., CSRD, EPR), product reformulation, and procurement/supply-chain collaboration.
- Nina DePalma sees 2026 as a step-change toward “more real, more operational” regenerative programs, enabled by end-to-end measurement and data exchange (e.g., PACT PCFs).
- New releases include plug-and-play access to HowGood’s database and progress toward becoming a major PACT network hub for PCF exchange.
Nina DePalma: HowGood at a Glance
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Nina DePalma, Chief Product Officer at HowGood, a sustainability intelligence platform for food companies, prior to the start of ClimateWeek New York.
“We are the largest database for food- and ag-specific emissions data… We have a software platform that helps industry players measure and reduce their environmental impact.” She emphasized coverage beyond carbon: “We look across the spectrum of biodiversity, water, land use, labor, animal welfare, etc., to make sure that we’re not… falling victim to the carbon tunnel.”
Core use cases span “Scope 3 reporting and measurement… regulatory frameworks… product reformulation… sustainable procurement as well as supply-chain collaboration.” The company is fully remote, with staff in the U.S. and Europe and a presence at Climate Week in New York.
Why Specialization Matters in Food & Ag, According to Nina DePalma
“We are purpose-built for the food and ag system,” DePalma said when asked about differentiation. “Many of the other carbon accounting platforms look across all industries… They’re having to apply the same set of features and calculations across industries that don’t necessarily face the same challenges.”
HowGood’s method is fundamentally bottoms-up: “All of our calculations are built from individual ingredient and commodity emissions factors that we then combine into complex product carbon footprints.” For food and ag, she said, that is critical: “Instead of being stuck with a static emissions factor, we have dynamic product carbon footprints that evolve as underlying practices and production methods improve.”
Data Intake, Research, and Quality Scoring
On vetting and updating data, DePalma explained: “We have a very adept data science team, and we have basically an ETL process where we pull data in from our customers’ primary business operating systems like an ERP or PLM.”
Research is continual: “We are constantly reviewing papers, LCAs, etc.,… harmonizing and scrubbing those emissions factors and then putting them through our internal calculation engine and applying what we call a DQS, a data quality score, which measures the temporal recency and a number of other measures.”
Critically, the score is actionable: “Ideally, you get not only a score but also a set of actions or recommendations to improve that score.”
What Customers Are Asking Now
“We work across the entire industry,” she said, from retailers and distributors to CPGs, manufacturers, and commodity traders—at various stages of sustainability maturity. “Some folks will come to us and say, ‘We’ve just been asked by our largest customer to provide product carbon footprints for all of the SKUs… Can you help us with that? We don’t even know what a product carbon footprint is.’”
Others want HowGood to “improve or review a deep pre-existing set of internal methodologies.”
The question set is shifting quickly. “In the last six months, the types of questions have been so different than in the six months before,” she said, citing the macro environment and a “regulatory landscape [that] continues to evolve very quickly.”
Early questions include, “Do I even… fall under this regulation? Do I need to be thinking about EPR or CSRD?” and “What data do I need to start gathering… to be ready to report?”
Nina DePalma on Emerging Blind Spots and the Push for Scalability
DePalma outlined a split in current approaches: “There are two patterns emerging.” On one side, companies go “incredibly deep measuring their key commodities… doing in-field sensing to measure in real time.”
On the other, especially for diversified portfolios or retail, “there’s this line of thinking… it’s almost impossible to do accurate comprehensive measurement in a scalable way.”
She pushed back on the latter: “Not only is it possible, it’s fast and scalable, and it helps your business track those changes and those investments over time.”
The risk is either “spending all of their time and resources in one or two key commodities and missing the rest,” or “lower[ing] the level of… quality” to chase coverage.
Nina DePalma on Budgets, Tariffs, and Integrating Sustainability with Finance
“There certainly is [skepticism] present,” she said of the current climate, “although I don’t know if it’s skepticism.” Tariffs “sent a shock wave through the industry,” and sustainability teams “have long had to defend against budget cuts.”
The response she’s seeing: “Moving this data… into realms of the business that are more oriented towards risk, and particularly the finance side of things.”
“The folks that are most successful are ensuring that they’re translating their sustainability ambitions… into the financial impact it’s having on the business.”
As evidence of the shift, she noted, “Five years ago it may have sat under a marketing role and now it’s starting to sit under a chief financial officer or a chief revenue officer.”
From R&D Tooling to Supply-Chain Collaboration and IT
“We started building the platform particularly for R&D teams… fine-tuning an individual product,” DePalma said.
Over time, it has “become more of a supply-chain challenge, a procurement challenge, and also an IT challenge.”
Large CPGs must secure volumes (“250,000 metric tons of a given ingredient”) while “work[ing]… collaboratively to change the way that [suppliers] are impacting their supply chain to reach that ambitious goal.”
Standards help: “That’s where things like the PACT PCF format come into play… as well as the standardization of… data quality scores.”
Nina DePalma on Regenerative Agriculture and Measurement That Scales
DePalma called regenerative “the next wave,” contingent on measurement: “The most important part is the accurate measurement, but then also to have that chain of custody of that data so that you can measure the impact of a practice in-field all the way through your supply shed to the product that sits on the shelf.”
That end-to-end structure enables scaling: “Projects that we will see come out in 2026 will be… at a level that is more real, more operational… standard business practice.”
Referencing recent news, she added, “I’m sure you saw the McDonald’s… big regenerative program… The industry has arrived at a place in which it is possible and the technology is there.”
Beyond new programs, many companies can surface value from existing portfolios: “We’re seeing… products that are leading their category… and have a lower carbon footprint than any of their competitors.”
With measurement, that becomes part of “your go-to-market strategy” to win shelf space and vendor preference.
Nina DePalma on Product Roadmap and Network Effects
On upcoming features, DePalma said: “We are releasing access to our database in a new way… a plug-and-play fashion that hasn’t been possible before.”
HowGood is also “working on our PACT network hub status… we’ll be soon one of the largest hubs exchanging PACT PCFs for the food and ag industry.”
She added, “Lots more to come in the rest of this year,” encouraging readers to watch Climate Week announcements.
The Global Carbon Database, the tool Nina referenced, was released by HowGood in October 2025.
Looking to 2035
DePalma’s outlook is pragmatic and optimistic: “By 2035, we will have accelerated through this rough patch as an industry and… be working on the next set of problems.”
The driver is a combination of “willingness, collaboration, [and] the rapid acceleration of AI and the power that data can play in a business.”
Her takeaway from Climate Week momentum: “It is possible and it’s happening now… It has tremendous potential to accelerate our collective path towards those ambitious targets.”
