Savor LCA finds 80% lower emissions and 800× less land use for alternative milkfat

Savor has published new life cycle assessment data showing its alternative milkfat could cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% while using more than 800 times less land and 10 times less water than conventional dairy milkfat.

• Savor’s third-party life cycle assessment found its CO₂-derived alternative milkfat generated more than 80% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional dairy milkfat.
• The assessment found Savor’s process used more than 800 times less land and 10 times less water, based on pilot-plant production data.
• Savor reported carbon intensities of roughly 2kg CO₂e/kg using CO₂ and 5.5kg using methane under an average US electricity mix.

The California company, which makes fats by building molecules directly from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen rather than using crops or animals, commissioned Boundless Impact Research & Analytics to independently assess its first commercial product.

The cradle-to-gate assessment conformed to ISO 14040, 14044 and 14071 standards. The latter covers comparative assertions intended for public disclosure and requires independent critical review. According to Savor, three external experts in life cycle assessment and process modeling reviewed the calculations, assumptions and underlying data over two rounds.

The assessment used one kilogram of fat as its functional unit and compared Savor’s CO₂-derived alternative milkfat with conventional dairy milkfat, using ghee as a proxy for anhydrous milk fat where direct dairy data was limited.

Its base case assumed an average US electricity grid mix and found Savor’s process delivered an 80% lower greenhouse gas footprint, an 800-fold reduction in land use and a 10-fold reduction in water use.

The assessment was completed before publication of the GHG Protocol’s new Land Sector and Removals Standard and therefore did not include land-use emissions in its greenhouse gas comparison.

That makes the land result particularly relevant to Savor’s wider analysis of its technology. The company argues that accounting for the carbon that agricultural land could otherwise store materially changes comparisons between conventional fats and processes requiring little or no farmland.

Savor said its latest analysis indicated its process could reduce the climate footprint of fats and oils by around 50–98%, depending on the conventional fat being displaced, its carbon source and the energy used in production.

Under current conditions and an average US grid mix, Savor calculated a carbon intensity of approximately 2kg CO₂e for each kilogram of fat when CO₂ was used as the carbon source. Using methane increased that figure to around 5.5kg CO₂e/kg.

The company compared those figures with conventional fats and oils ranging from around 2kg to 30kg CO₂e/kg when direct land-use change emissions were included.

The results were more nuanced when land was excluded. Savor said its process reduced emissions substantially against land-intensive products such as cocoa butter and milkfat even when production emissions alone were considered.

Against relatively low-emission agricultural oils including palm, soy and canola, however, methane-derived Savor fat did not produce a carbon advantage on a production-only basis. The advantage for CO₂-derived fat was also comparatively modest.

The picture changed when land was incorporated into the calculation.

Using carbon opportunity cost – which considers the carbon that land could store if it were not devoted to agricultural production – Savor calculated reductions across all the fat and oil categories it examined. Direct land-use change calculations produced a similar pattern, although results depended partly on when land had originally been converted to agricultural use.

The company said the resulting 50–98% reduction range reflected both production emissions and the effects associated with land use.

Savor’s latest data also provided the first opportunity to compare measurements from its pilot production process with modeling published before the company had scaled the technology.

In 2023, research published in Nature Sustainability modeled the environmental footprint of producing fats without agriculture as a function of carbon source, process energy requirements and electricity carbon intensity.

The earlier work estimated that fats produced from methane using the average US grid could have a footprint below 7.2kg CO₂e/kg, compared with approximately 13.5kg CO₂e/kg for palm oil produced in Indonesia.

Savor’s subsequent pilot data put methane-derived fat at approximately 5.5kg CO₂e/kg and CO₂-derived fat at approximately 2kg CO₂e/kg, excluding credits for carbon embodied in the finished product.

According to the company, both measured results fell within the range anticipated by the earlier modeling, with lower emissions than projected because measured process energy requirements were below the assumptions used in the original models.

Energy remains an important variable in the process. Savor said its footprint was principally determined by the amount of energy required, the carbon intensity of that energy and the source of the carbon used to make the fat.

Sensitivity analysis conducted as part of the third-party LCA examined carbon source, processing aids and electricity grid intensity. Carbon source had the largest effect, influencing the calculated footprint by more than five times as much as either of the other factors.

Savor also highlighted a methodological difference around captured CO₂.

For its wider comparisons, the company did not treat CO₂ incorporated into its fat as permanent carbon sequestration because that carbon is ultimately returned to the atmosphere when the fat is metabolized.

The certified LCA used a methodology that credited captured carbon embodied in the product, resulting in a formally reported footprint of 0.02kg CO₂e/kg for the CO₂-derived alternative milkfat. Without that credit, Savor reported 2.06kg CO₂e/kg – the basis for its claim of an approximately 80% reduction compared with dairy milkfat.

Using the embodied-carbon methodology, the reduction exceeded 99%.

Savor said its longer-term environmental case would depend not only on reducing the land required to manufacture fats, but also on what happened to agricultural land potentially displaced by the technology.

The company illustrated the point using its cocoa butter substitute, which replaces a palm-kernel-derived fat. It calculated that each metric ton of its substitute could spare 0.23 hectares of land in palm-growing regions.

Under a scenario in which that land was reforested, Savor calculated that the net footprint of methane-derived fat could fall from 5.5kg to 2.4kg CO₂e/kg.

Savor said it was now developing partnerships, accounting approaches and funding mechanisms around restoration as it continues to scale production.

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