Counting the carbon cost

Carbon labels on juice cartons

Your weekly shop could never be the same again. Giles Crosse investigates the impact of carbon labelling

From soup to shampoo, the way we shop is changing. Not long ago, few of us paid much attention to the nutritional labels on our food. Today, more of us want to know the amounts of fat, sugar and salt that go into our food. But we're not only interested in health issues.

Carbon labelling

Increasingly, many of us also want to understand how what we buy affects climate change. So government departments are creating similar labelling standards for carbon as for fat or salt, this time showing the greenhouse gas impacts of your purchases. For example, these labels could tell you how much CO2 was emitted in making a yoghurt, a can of coke or your latest household appliance.

Why do we need carbon labelling?

As consumers, we are increasingly concerned about not buying things that are harmful to the environment. But currently there’s no reliable way to find this out in the shops. Carbon labels are a quick way to check you’re really buying the most environmentally friendly product on offer.

Carbon labels can help companies too - most businesses are willing to cut the amount of CO2 they produce. This is partly to appeal to their increasingly eco-conscious consumers, but they also understand that sustainable practices will be profitable in the long run. And the more companies that get involved in the carbon label, the greater the pressure on others to look at their CO2 emissions.

So far, so good. The hard part lies in actually creating an easily understandable, scientifically accurate standard, which allows consumers and companies to make fair comparisons between different products and services.

How are carbon labels created?

Since early 2007, The Carbon Trust, DEFRA and BSI have been working towards a Publicly Available Specification, called PAS 2050. It’s hoped this will become the basis for measuring carbon in a product. A total of 20 major companies, like Tesco, Boots, Morphy Richards, and Walkers, have all agreed to work together to test the system. And testing is needed.

It’s key to remember that products make an impact on climate change and the environment throughout their life cycle. This includes everything from their original state as raw materials in the ground, to converting them into goods, to recycling or dumping them. All these stages produce carbon emissions.

And you also have to think about how much energy was used in making something. If a company chooses to use electricity sourced from wind power in their production that could alter the CO2 count of their product. The same could be said about using recyclable packaging.

How will carbon labelling help tackle climate change?

It will mean you can look on the supermarket shelf and directly compare brands just from the carbon label on the packet. This will give shoppers the power to support the environmentally responsible products in a way that they have not been able to before. But perhaps more importantly, companies developing the label are committed to delivering real action on reducing CO2, or they will risk losing the label.

What do the critics say?

Peter Jones from one of the country's biggest waste companies, Biffa, welcomes the concept, but warns it needs the right approach. “We need a transparent, universally standard methodology for measuring carbon footprints, in much the same way as the price tag tells us something about the direct financial cost of a product,” he says.

“[But] such a system has to be universal. Whilst only the anorak one per cent will want to check the maths, there needs to be a regulatory framework in much the same way that all standards are implemented. Without that, the system will lose all credibility."

Chris Coggins from Wamtech is concerned that the true CO2 impact of many products actually depends on how we use them in our own homes. How can a label reveal this?

“We have to think about life cycle and cradle to grave,” he says. “But can product labelling do this if [we] don’t know how the product is going to be used, for example different temperatures for washing clothes? And what happens at end of the product’s life: recycling, composting or landfill?”

When will carbon labelling be introduced?

It's already out there. Tesco launched the label on 29 April 2008. You should be able to pick up a leaflet in larger Tesco stores explaining the system, or look at Greener Living at Tesco.com for more information. A number of other partners, including Boots and Walkers, are expected to follow soon, so keep your eyes peeled the next time you go for the weekly shop.

Nonetheless, the real question remains whether we as consumers care enough to take the extra five minutes to read such labels and buy with the environment in mind. That is something only time will tell.