Tesco Beats Carbon Trust By Labelling The Black In The White Stuff.

Posted on 20. Aug, 2009 by Ross in Retail & Commercial, United Kingdom

Tesco has announced that it will be rolling out carbon footprint labelling on its own brands of milks by the end of the year, only a week after the Carbon Trust announced it would be aiding dairy farmers to start calculating their carbon dioxide emissions.

The move is an important exercise for Tesco, with milk being one of their top-selling products. It coincides with new research that both the public understanding of the meaning of carbon footprints and the desire to purchase products with carbon footprint labelling has increased by 50% over the last year to half the population of the UK. Talking to the Guardian about the move, Tesco community and government director David North said:

We’re using [milk] to play an important new role in helping our customers understand climate change, the carbon footprints of products, and what steps they can take to help. Milk is not only one of the biggest sellers in store; it’s also prominent on breakfast tables day in day out across the country. So we think carbon labels on milk can play a great part in raising awareness and helping customers navigate the new carbon currency.

There has been a new emphasis on the need to reduce farming emissions to the last few weeks. As well as the Carbon Trust’s announcement regarding helping dairy farmers calculate their emissions, interest-free Carbon Trust loans are also now available to farms for energy efficiency projects such as energy-efficient lighting in barns and warehouses. That news came as part of the UK Government’s recent Low Carbon Transition Plan, which included a brand-new carbon reduction target of 6% for the agricultural sector by 2020.

Tesco had been the target of greenwashing criticism in previous years, but has recently been attracting wide support for its progress on environmental issues. It recently gained the Carbon Trust Standard after achieving an absolute reduction in its carbon emissions for the previous year, and is committed to labelling 500 of its own brand products with carbon footprint labels by the end of the year.

Image by Muffet @ Flickr