Some ingredients in your reports carry a HESTIA (v.1.1) mark next to their country of origin. It means the farm-gate footprint of that ingredient, for that country, comes from HESTIA.
What HESTIA is. HESTIA (hestia.earth) is an open platform for agricultural and food data run by the University of Oxford. It collects measured farm data (yields, fertiliser and pesticide use, fuel, irrigation, land use) from published studies and field records, harmonises them, and publishes national averages per crop. The data is open under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0).
What we take from it. For each crop and country that HESTIA covers, we use its national average as published: the inputs to the farm and the emissions that happen on the field (fertiliser and manure emissions, land occupation and land-use change, water withdrawn). We only use aggregates that HESTIA has validated for release and that carry a data quality score of 2 or more on their 4-point scale. This release, version 1.1 of 10 March 2026, gives us 161 ingredients in 43 countries, plus a world average used where we have no country-specific data. The ingredients are cereals, oilseeds, pulses, fruit, vegetables, cocoa, coffee, sugar crops, the meals and oils pressed from them, and wine.
What stays ours. HESTIA describes what goes into and out of the farm. The footprint of those inputs, the fertiliser factory, the diesel, the electricity, is calculated on Sustained's own reference data, so a HESTIA ingredient is comparable with every other ingredient in your report. Processing after the farm gate (milling, pressing, refining) and everything downstream, transport, packaging, storage and end of life, is Sustained's, as for any other ingredient.
Why a number may look different from before. HESTIA's national averages include land-use change where it has happened in the last 20 years, on the same basis for every country. For crops grown on recently cleared land, such as cocoa in West Africa and Indonesia, or palm and soy in parts of South-East Asia and South America, this can be most of the footprint, and higher than a figure that leaves it out. Where a HESTIA country average replaces a previous generic or regional proxy, the number reflects that country's actual farming rather than a stand-in.
Where a HESTIA number is not used. Where your ingredient names a specific practice (organic, agroforestry, low-input) and we hold data for that practice, that data stays in place: a national average would erase the distinction. Processed forms of a crop (flour, juice, preserves) keep their own datasets unless HESTIA publishes that form itself (meals, crude and refined oils, wholemeal flour, wine).
Attribution. HESTIA data release 1.1 (2026-03-10), hestia.earth, licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). HESTIA has not reviewed or endorsed Sustained's results.