Carbon Labelling on everyday food products look set to stay, but what are these indictors and how reliable are they in practice?
As I walk briskly down the shelves of my local supermarket on the standard weekly shop a number of choices present themselves to me as the everyday consumer. However these choices are not exactly what you may expect such as which brand name of orange juice or washing detergent to buy, moreover a rather unexpected aspect of the product itself. Carbon Labelling as it’s commonly known has become a veritable fashion icon for many mass produced retail products, combining competitive advantage with less environmental impact. The principle is simple; stick a large attractive sticker on your product which states only too boldly that ‘this is a product you can trust’, a product which not only performs for the consumer but is also environmentally friendly in its production. Indeed the mainstream supermarket, Tesco’s boast carbon labels on no less than 114 of its products including potatoes, milk, orange juice and light bulbs [1]. Similarly huge multinationals such as Walkers Crisps, Cadbury-Schweppes and even Coca Cola have committed to carbon labels on a variety of their products. Most official carbon food labels are calculated by the Carbon Trust, an independent government QUANGO specialising in environmental resource management. Essentially the label provides a figure denoting the volume of carbon emissions generated during the products lifecycle in metric grammes, kilos or tonnes [2].
Overall so far so good right? The carbon label provides an accountable way for companies to demonstrate their environmental credentials whilst giving the consumer the power to choose the best performing products for their fridge. As I look at my standard bag of Walkers Cheese and Onion flavour crisps I see bold writing stating that this bag generated 80g CO2 during its production cycle. However despite the fact that I have just graduated with a honours degree in Environmental Management I am having trouble really putting this information into practice. Indeed what does 80g mean in real terms? I have nothing to compare it to, nothing to tell me whether this reading is even good or bad? I then resort to telling myself that this shouldn’t matter it is merely a measure the company can use to reduce its emissions across the items production cycle. However is this the only point of a carbon label, surely as everyday consumers we should be able to use the figure to make reasonably informed choices about the way we shop. More worryingly it seems the plot thickens as carbon labels are even accused of being too simplistic, indeed it becomes apparent that balancing the food we love to eat with its carbon cost is a devilishly tricky business. For example an article appearing in the Observer newspaper quoted Gareth Thomas, the previous governments minister for Trade and Development. He admitted at an air freight seminar that ‘driving 5.6 miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK’. Similarly the article suggests that growing British lettuces in heated greenhouses in the winter is more environmentally damaging than buying field grown lettuce from Spain [3].
Surely then this information leads the everyday ethical consumer into a whole new world of dilemmas when it comes to buying foods. At the present time the most environmentally friendly option still has to be buying locally, for its accountability and benefits to the local economy, as well as sustainably. However as is the nature of our ever growing society supermarkets and big brands are set to stay as the dominant method of buying food. Do you trust the companies that place carbon labels on their products or just pass it off as yet another green washing publicity stunt? Clearly the future for eco labels is murky and it will take far more labelled products to really get an idea of which foods perform environmentally well and which don’t. Maybe a rethink is required, a more standardised approach that strikes common ground between all products, giving the consumer real power in product decision making. It is highly likely that carbon labelling will stay with us for the foreseeable future, surely reforms to the method will be required for robust environmental purchasing to ensue.
[1] Tesco (2010) Carbon Footprints and Labelling, Tesco Greener Living. Available From: http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/greener_tesco/faqs/qa_carbon_footprint_and_labelling.page [Accessed 17/7/2010].
[2] The Carbon Trust (2010) Carbon Reduction Labels. Available From: http://www.carbon-label.com/individuals/label.html [Accessed 17/7/2010].
[3] McKee, R. (2008) How the Myth of Food Miles Hurts the Planet. The Observer, 23/03/2008. Available From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/food.ethicalliving [Accessed 17/7/2010].
