For decades, consumers understood that eating foods high in fat had serious health risks. But it took years of education, standardized nutrition labels and even bans on trans fats before we started changing our ways. Now, we consult nutritional labels on menus, in the grocery store and in recipes before we even think of lifting fork to mouth.
This model of labeling can also be applied to working to reduce global climate change. In the US House, Democratic leaders say they’re planning to take up legislation on a US cap and trade system this year. The sooner companies move to put carbon labels on products across the spectrum, the better they might fare when Carbon Cap and Trade regulations are eventually implemented.
The concept is pretty straightforward: identify and label the carbon footprint of products and services so businesses and consumers can make informed choices about the carbon impact of their purchases. And as consumer brands start to adopt this practice, there is downward pressure on suppliers to capture their carbon information and consider reductions as well. Sort of a trickle down “carbon-omics” effect.
Companies are not only taking an inventory of their carbon emissions throughout their manufacturing process, but they are also being honest with consumers about what their footprint is and plans for reducing it. The great difficulty lies in the execution and standardization of these labels. Still, a whole host of businesses, advocacy groups and governments are jumping into the effort. Here’s a look at what they’re doing:
The United Kingdom started forging this path in 2001, with the roll out of the pilot program Carbon Trust and its Carbon Reduction Label. The non-profit is helping a handful businesses become accountable for their lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions including production, transportation, use, and disposal. Pepsico and the UK supermarket chain Tesco are the biggest participants.
In Japan, the Trade Ministry is overseeing an ambitious plan rolling out this year which will require carbon footprint labeling on food packaging and other products – a program the government sees as an integral step in reaching Japan’s stated goal of reducing total carbon emissions by up to 80% by 2050.
In the U.S., the Carbon Fund and the Climate Conservancy are doing similar work and California has its own Carbon Labeling Act of 2008 working to “establish a methodology for determining and communicating the carbon footprint of a consumer product[s]”. Other countries such as Sweden and South Korea are working on their own carbon labeling systems, all based on similar philosophies, but with different visual approaches.
Until enough time has passed and enough labels are out there to educate the public and have meaningful data to evaluate, carbon labeling will do more to help companies become aware of their own carbon footprints than sell more products.
But that’s ok: All new ideas with no benchmark go through cycles of trial and error. It took over five different automobile models to get the pedal and shifting layout we’re so accustomed to today (thank you Top Gear ), so there’s no reason carbon labeling should be any easier.
The day will come when companies will have to account for their carbon footprints and those that do it early are likely to have a competitive edge. However, carbon labels on their own are not going to reduce carbon emissions to the levels needed to stem the effects of climate change, but they can be used as a tool to raise awareness and help implement larger regulation. Just as in the calorie debate, it took bans on trans fats to drive industry to be more transparent about what’s in our food, carbon fat isn’t much different.
