What’s new?

• Enhanced user friendliness
• Increased flexibility in value chain mapping
• Simplified tool structure
• Improved organization of results

What is EX-ACT VC:

EX-ACT VC is a quantitative multi-appraisal tool developed to evaluate the sustainability of agrifood VC simultaneously along a range of environmental, economic, and social indicators. It aims to support users in identifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along an agri-food value chain, with a focus on downstream value chain activities, including processing, storage, packaging and transportation; quantifying food losses along the chain; and measuring the value chain contribution to value added, profitability, and employment opportunities. The tool can provide decision support to design (ex ante) and evaluate (ex post) agrifood projects and policies by comparing a ‘current’ scenario with baseline information and a ‘planned’ scenario involving a future vision or goal.

What are the main changes between v.3 and v.3.5:

• Simplified tool structure:

• The modules ‘1 - Start’ and ‘2 – Commodity tracker’ of v.3 have now been combined into one single module, named ‘1 - Functional analysis’. Module 2 is for the environmental assessment, module 3 for the socio-economic assessment, while modules 4 and 5 shows environmental and socio-economic results respectively.
• Module ‘2 - Environmental assessment’ in v.3.5 now includes the section to report primary production GHG emissions, the option for selecting the Global Warming Potential, and the Transportation section.

• Greater flexibility in mapping the value chain:

• V.3.5 module 1 presents a matrix to map actors and flows of commodity along the value chain, for both current and planned scenarios.

• Enhanced user friendliness throughout the tool:

• Improved layout of the tool, increased pop-up/error/hint messages throughout the modules.
• Improved HELP tab with step-by-step guidance, definitions, examples, advice, and calculators.

• Streamlined socio-economic results:

• V.3.5 organizes socio-economic results around value added generation, profitability, and employment creation.

The updated version of the EX-ACT VC guidelines with detailed methodological approach and step-by-step guidance will be released soon.

The EPIC-EX-ACT team remains available for any query regarding EX-ACT VC. Please write to team at: [email protected].

Image rights:Luis Tato for FAO