Change Log
A summary of the updates made within each released version of the UP Scorecard
Version 1.2 (January 26, 2026)
We updated the chemicals of concern metric, which considers hazardous chemicals that are used in the production of or known to be present in food contact materials (FCMs). The updated metric uses the Food Contact Chemicals Priority (FCCprio) list, a list of food contact chemicals to phase out or avoid, which relies on a robust protocol developed by the Food Packaging Forum (FPF). The list prioritizes food contact chemicals into tiers using authoritative hazard classifications and data about their presence in food contact materials and their detection in humans.
Two new resources are included in the FCCprio list:
- The first allows stakeholders to find out which prioritized chemicals are used or have been detected within common food contact materials (according to publicly accessible sources). This data can make discussions with suppliers or manufacturers more efficient.
- The second is an Excel tool to copy and paste any set of chemical CAS registry numbers and receive a breakdown of which chemicals, if any, are found in the FCCprio List and from which tier. The comparison tool incorporates outdated and retired CAS numbers for all chemicals, so the comparison is robust to minor variations in chemicals reporting.
Version 1.1 (August 21, 2025)
In some circumstances, the scores for the Climate and Water Use metrics were mis-calculated. The error applied only to user-created products, and not the default products. The scores were better then they should have been. With the fix, some users may have noticed that the products they created got worse.
The bug occurred after logging out and logging back in, although we were not able to determine whether it occurred for all users. If you have questions about whether the scores you are seeing are as-expected, please submit your question to info@upscorecard.org
Version 1.0 (March 26, 2025)
- Additional washing options for reusables:
- Users can choose from a range of different washing systems, either on-site or off-site
- If an off-site washing system is selected, the user is invited to specify the transportation modes and distances to the washing center
- Dashboard – portfolio mode:
- New comparison possibilities: the user can now compare the results of different product portfolios, and benchmark them with the worst and best alternative portfolios. This functionality allows the user to track progress over time, and to forecast sustainability gains with alternative portfolios.
- New KPIs: the dashboard gives some complementary information and KPIs to the user. They are meant to help make the case for more sustainable approaches and help decision-making for alternative solutions. KPIs include:
- Land use
- Waste diversion
- Share of reusable items
- Share of SU plastic items
- New help content: we created a new wiki page-type resource around the UP Scorecard. This help page is less technical hence more accessible than the full methodology document, and provides :
- the basics to understand sustainability challenges in food ware and food packaging
- high-level explanations of the tool methodology and how to use the tool and its features (in particular customization)
- Links to external resources
- Component scoring: The three qualitative metrics (Chemicals of Concern, Sustainable Sourcing, and Recoverability) now depend on all the components of a product, not just the main component (some products, e.g. bottles, have more than one component). In the beta versions, only the primary component determined the product’s score for the three qualitative metrics. See the Scoring section of the methodology document for more details. As with previous versions, the three quantitative metrics (Climate, Plastic Pollution, and Water Use) are based on all components of a product, from raw materials to forming, transport, use, recycling/recovery, and disposal.
- Region of production: Users can now specify the region of production for a product, distinct from the region of use. In the beta versions, the production region was the global average, while the user could specify the region of use (which determined average rates of recovery, recycled content inclusion, and disposal mixes). Now, the user can specify the region of production for a product, separately from the region of use. Like the beta versions, the region of use determines default recycled content and recovery rates. But now, the impacts of producing the product (raw materials, forming, and transport) depend on the region of production. See section 3 of the methodology document for more information on the LCA model behind the UP Scorecard.
- Default freight distances and modes now depend on the combination of regions (use and production). Although the user can, of course, customize these.
- Recoverability metric: the minimum number of reuse cycles for an item to be considered reusable in the tool was changed from 1 to 10.
- Sustainable sourcing metric: PCR content is now rewarded for all materials (Previously, only inert materials were rewarded by the Sustainable sourcing metric for their recycled content. This restriction was imposed out of concern for chemicals in the recycled content material stream. However, this was deemed to be redundant with the Chemicals of Concern metric, and so in v1.0, any material [except those containing PFAS chemicals] can be rewarded for recycled content in the Sustainable sourcing metric).
- COC metric, chemical lists: We updated and harmonized the data used to identify chemicals of concern. The UP Scorecard now integrates the Food Contact Chemicals Priority (FCCprio) List developed and published independently by the Food Packaging Forum Foundation for the level of compliance. We also redefined the tiers for the level of disclosure:
- Level 1: Supplier is unable to provide information about in-scope chemicals of concern in the materials within the foodware or packaging component
- Level 2: Supplier self-reports compliance with all in-scope chemicals of concern within the tier
- Level 3: Supplier provides a statement on their website or a written (preferably publicly available) declaration from an officer-level representative of the company self-reporting compliance with all in-scope chemicals of concern within the tier
- Level 4: Supplier provides third-party verified certificates of analysis (CoA) and/or approved certification program equivalent (preferably publicly available) for all in-scope chemicals of concern within the tier
- COC metric, food contact: For food packaging and foodware product with more than one component (e.g. a container and lid), the level of food contact can be different for each component. The COC score in v1.0 depends on whether food contact with the component is direct, intermittent, or not possible. When the user defines a product with multiple components, they can assign the nature of the food contact for each component (see the CoC Methodology section for more details).
- New materials:
- “melamine” as a material for various types of foodware
- steel
- silicon rubber
- New containers: we added pizza boxes in the Hot take out use case, including single-use and reusable items
- New regions: we added a virtual sustainable city named “Ecoville”, representing a model of good practices that can be used as a benchmark for future assessments.
- LCA data updates:
- Ecoinvent data used in the tool has been updated to the latest Ecoinvent database, Ecoinvent 3.10.
- Other sources have also been updated, including impacts of PLA and bio-ethylene glycol from GREET vYY, and default recycled content and recovery rates from various sources, where available.
- Aluminum: Aluminum can forming uses the most recent available inventory from the Aluminum Association
- Chemicals of Concern: The UP Scorecard now implements the Food Contact Chemicals Priority (FCCprio) List to identify chemicals of concern. This adopts a more robust data-based approach, reflecting the latest publicly available hazard data for the universe of known food contact chemicals. Identified priority food contact chemicals fulfill one or more of the following hazards:
- Carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic to reproduction (CMR)
- Specific Target Organ Toxicity Upon Repeated Exposure (STOT-RE)
- Endocrine disruption (ED)
- Persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT)
- Persistent, mobile, and toxic (PMT)
Version 0.4 (November 23, 2023)
- Users can now create their own private account. This function allows the user to save customized products, portfolios of products, and newly defined foodstuffs. The users can continue to work with their own data at a later stage. Full use of the tool is still possible as a guest without the need to create a user account. A user account is however required for the use of the portfolio function.
- The landing page has been adapted accordingly, with the possibility to sign in as a guest or with a user account. To create an account, a registration form must be filled in providing basic information about the user.
- The COC scoring methodology has been improved. In addition to the potential presence of COCs and the inertness of the packaging material, the scoring now takes into account the impact that the type of food and its storage conditions can have on the migration of COCs (including non-intentionally added substances). The user can select the foodstuff to be packaged from a predefined list, or they can create a new food by describing it via a set of six criteria (storage time, storage temperature, fat content, acidity, contact type, and typical packaging size).
- Users now have the ability to create and save portfolios comprising multiple products to represent entire business units, such as restaurants or cafeterias, which are then scored as a whole.
- A benchmarking system has been implemented that allows the comparison to other portfolios.
- To improve consistency, the raw scores for each of the six metrics are now all the same in that a lower raw score always represents better performance. However, the calculation approach for the summary score remains the same (a higher final summary score represents better performance).
Version 0.3 (October 19, 2022)
- Additional geographic regions can now be implemented in the backend of the tool (if the necessary data describing the region is available). The regionalized data includes life cycle inventory and impact information such as local electricity grids and default recycled content and recycling rates, as well as end-of-life treatment descriptors such as recovery and disposal parameters.
- The two new regions “Europe average” and “Global average” have been added to the tool (in addition to the already existing “United States average” region) and can be selected by the user for the assessment.
- An additional function for creating new and customized products was implemented. This function allows the user to create new products based on the commonly used materials already available in the tool. These new products can then be easily assessed and compared with existing products already available by default.
- The normalization for all six metrics has been harmonized to make comparing results simpler. For the normalization, the best possible product (i.e. a product without impacts) is now used as a reference point for all scores. The scale for all normalized scores has been harmonized to always be from 1 (worst score) to 100 (best score).
- Landing page: The first page of the tool was adapted to the design of the website and now directly contains the first step (selection of the region) in the workflow of the tool.
- Results page: The presentation of the product scores has been adapted and simplified to make it more intuitive.
- Normalized scores are now shown as numerical values (and still with an easy-to-understand color scale). This makes the scores directly comparable between the different metrics. For the quantitative metrics (Plastic Pollution, Climate, Water Use), the raw scores are shown additionally.
- The icon to indicate limited availability of underlying data for the Chemicals of Concern score has been changed from a hatch pattern to an empty circle with colored, dashed outline.
- The summary scores are now presented as doughnut charts. This was done to distinguish the summary score from the other metrics and allow easier visual interpretation.
- Column headings have been redesigned to be more streamlined.
- Guidance within the tool has been adapted and/or supplemented in order to simplify provided instructions and background information, as well as to adapt them to the recently added features.
- To make the UP Scorecard easily usable globally and to simplify comparisons, all units have been changed to standard metric units across the tool, including in product descriptions.
Version 0.2 (February 25, 2022)
- Additional use cases and products have been integrated and can now be assessed. This includes over 70 newly added foodware and food packaging products including cups, plates, trays, bowls, ramekins, takeout containers, lids, and utensils.
- Results page: highlighting of reusable options with a turquoise bar, includes new navigation points for each product, offers ability to change the column sorting, displays “# of uses” and “% recycled content” for each product, includes legend adjustments and highlighting of product names.
- Customize page: offers composting and recycling settings as pop-up window, includes improvements in the arrangements of the individual elements.
- Composting and recycling page: improved the arrangement of settings for composting and recycling as a list and with collapsable material sections.
- Introduction pages: consolidates and simplifies these pages.
- Display of customized products on the results page and labeled through the addition of “(Custom)” in the product name. Allows easy comparison between the default version and the user’s customized version.
- Immediate preview of updated scores when changing parameters on the customize page.
- Users are required to choose at least one reusable option to continue with the comparison of products.
- Ability to clear previous settings and reset back to the defaults from a previous session directly on the tool’s packaging selection page.
- Display of additional product details on the customize page, including a short product description, the average product dimensions used for the calculation, and the number of underlying measurements.
- Shows a pop-up warning when switching between the US average and the custom recoverability settings.
- Chemicals of Concern (CoC)
- The tiered list of chemicals used within the metric has been renamed as the “Food Chemicals of Concern (FCOC) List.”
- The equation defining the calculation of the overall CoC score has been updated (applies addition instead of multiplication of the sub-scores). The total CoC score now exists with a range of 2 (worst) to 20 (best).
- For the three qualitative metrics (Chemicals of Concern, Recoverability, Sustainable Sourcing), the calculation of the relative score has changed (the relative score determines the icon shown – red, orange, yellow, light green, or green). Previously, the relative score was determined the same way for all metrics: based on the ranges of scores for all products within a use case. Now, for the qualitative metrics, the normalized score is based on the min and max possible score for each metric. The relative score calculation for the quantitative metrics (Plastic Pollution, Climate, Water) is unchanged. See the Scoring section in the Methodology document for details.
- Placement of a disclaimer of liability on the results page.
- This version (v0.2) is being released under a proprietary (“all rights reserved”) license of use. See the Terms and Conditions page.
- Various edits and bug fixes including typos and backend corrections.
Version 0.1 (July 20, 2021)
The first version of the UP Scorecard was released to the public.
