A new labeling campaign is in development that will inform consumers about how much carbon has been used to create the product they are about to buy. This sounds like a great idea! It will let consumers make more informed choices about what to buy. It’s only happening in Britain for now, hopefully we’ll see this in the rest of the world though.
Participating companies also have to agree to cut the product’s carbon footprint over a two-year period or face being thrown out of the scheme.
The first goods bearing the label are expected to appear on shelves in April.
A couple of interesting things with the labelling approach:
Many parts of a company’s operations cannot be simply associated with a single product, and the methodology will have to be very tightly regulated to prevent manufacturers from assigning dirty parts of their operations to products that they do not label. Some electricity suppliers already do this by selling marked up ‘green’ electricity, but not making an additional investment in renewable energy.
Labelling is a voluntary approach – companies do not have to use them and consumers don’t have to take any notice. Labelled products are always specialist products for consumers with unusual preferences. If we are looking for more mainstream change, we should be regulating.