Three British companies have begun using a labelling scheme that
recognizes their efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of their
products.
The retailer Alliance Boots, drinks group Innocent and snack
manufacturer Walkers are the first to take part in the scheme, which
has been developed by the Carbon Trust, a government-backed private
company working with businesses to cut carbon emissions.
To gain the right to use the label on one of their products, the three
companies must complete an analysis, to an agreed methodology, of the
carbon footprint associated with the manufacture of that product and
its associated supply chain. They then undertake to reduce the carbon
footprint of the product during the next two years. If they fail to do
so the trust will withdraw the label.
The label is based on an experimental methodology for measuring a
product’s ‘embodied carbon’ that the trust has been working on for 18
months. The methodology is to be reviewed regularly by a technical
advisory group chaired by Jim Skea, research director of the UK Energy
Resource Centre. Members will be from government, business, environment
and consumer groups.
The first product to display the label is Walkers cheese and onion
crisps, which has now gone through the agreed carbon analysis. The logo
will also appear soon on Boots’ Botanics and Ingredients shampoos,
whose carbon footprints have been measured.
Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent, said his company had become
involved partly because the scheme provided a handy way of measuring
carbon impacts. ‘We wanted to know where every last gram of carbon
dioxide was being generated,’ he said.
A number of other companies have pledged their support for the work and
will monitor progress, among them Cadbury Schweppes, the Co-operative
Group, Duchy Originals, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco.
An NOP poll of 1159 British consumers recently commissioned by the
Carbon Trust showed that two-thirds wanted to know the carbon footprint
of the products they buy.
