Universal Carbon Product Labelling Touted By UK Politicians

Posted on 23. Mar, 2009 by Ross in Government Policy, United Kingdom

Every single product that companies buy and sell in the UK could soon have to declare the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the product’s manufacture. That is the new stance of the government’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) in a report about to be released.

In a similar move to the recent food labelling initiatives recently enacted voluntarily by the UK food retail industry, the committee wants to see sector-based environmental labelling in order to give consumers the transparency that they need to make an informed choice on the cost of their purchasing habits upon the environment, as well as helping to tackle corporate “greenwashing“.

Aware of the detrimental effect that Tesco’s rebellious stance on food labelling had on that initiative - by refusing to implement the agreed standards and aggressively marketing its own, more visually neutral labelling instead - the committee also called on the government to be prepared to legislate on the issue if necessary.

Some companies are already taking big strides in this direction by voluntarily assessing the carbon footprints of their products. Coca Cola is one such company: just a couple of weeks ago it published the carbon footprint of the UK production of three of its’ main carbonated drinks brands. By doing so in an honest and up-front way it added weight to the honesty of its’ corporate social responsibility endeavours, and enabled its’ consumers to follow the downward journey of those footprints as the company continues to invest in energy-efficiency measures.

Whilst the initiative would doubtless incur extra costs to businesses in nearly every sector, the potential financial and marketing bonuses are also obvious. The scheme would enable companies who made genuine gains in their environmental credentials a universally understood mechanism for marketing those credentials. Investment in the production of greener products would see a better pay-off as consumers - already hungry for more environmentally-conscious products and brands - could make their purchasing decisions more ethically-minded in-store, whereas at the moment the eco-ethical market is largely restricted to a small demographic who search for sustainable brands on the internet. A much wider range of people would factor ethical considerations such as the environment into their buying patterns if the information was readily available.

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  3. Honest CSR: Coca Cola Leads The Way
  4. China Prepares For Carbon Intensity Targets In Copenhagen
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