Elemental

Carbon Trust have launched a carbon reduction label:

that demonstrates a commitment from companies to reduce the carbon footprint of their products.

Walkers, Boots and Innocent* have signed up.  The work Innocent have been doing is really interesting.  The carbon footprints of various products:

• Innocent mango and passion fruit smoothie – 294 grams
• Apple – 37.5 grams
• american cheeseburger – 4400 grams

Walker’s Cheese and Onion crisps will be the first on the shelves with a published label (75 grams).  Now you can alleviate the guilt of stuffing your face with crisps by justifying that the carbon footprint is only double that of an apple. Boots Organics shampoo comes out at 148 grams.

I wrote about Tesco’s aspirations on eco-labelling here, and noted that the supply chain would be the key.  Carbon Trust have specified a methodology and Tesco’s seem to be on board: 

For products to carry the carbon label, companies will need to have completed a rigorous carbon analysis of their product supply chains following the agreed methodology, and commit to reducing the carbon level of their product over the next two years.

The initiative has been supported by a wide range of businesses and stakeholders including Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Cadbury Schweppes, Duchy Originals, the Co-operative Group, The Climate Group, the British Retail Consortium, WWF, Green Alliance, Food and Drink Federation and Forum for the Future.

Good to see Tesco are sticking with the pack on this one rather than reinventing the wheel and making up their own methodology (like their food nutritional information labels). 

I was rather dismissive of the usefulness of the labels before.  It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out.  For instance, how will local fruit and veg shops or butchers cope (or compete)?  And how does the label adjust for differing distances travelled by the products?  A bag of Walkers bought in Leicester will have a different footprint to a bag bought in Dundee?

* Innocent have a great blog – a very good example of how to interact using ‘new media’

mel starrs Uncategorized British Retail Consortium, Cadbury Schweppes, carbon, Carbon Reduction Label Carbon Trust, Carbon Trust, Drink Federation and Forum, food, Food and Drink Federation, food nutritional information labels, Green Alliance, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury, supply chain, Tesco, The Climate Group, Walkers, WWF

Following a tip-off from WorkinProperty (another new kid on the construction blogging block) I followed the proceedings here.  Not sure how long the chat will stick around so I’ve cut and paste it below the break for reference.  It was hard to determine how many of the questions were pre-picked and how many were ‘live’.  Some of the answers seemed fairly polished with links peppered through them but others were definitely more on the hoof.  It’s a good way to guage the government’s perspective of what puplic opinion is on various issues – as the discussion was moderated, those questions which were more relevant (or answerable) will probably have been chosen (they had a few hundred to choose from and only an hour to answer them).

Topics covered include recycling (I covered recent figures on Leeds here),  lightbulbs, plastic bags, food, carbon allowances (DEFRA’s rough guide available here (pdf, 41pages) and the RSA’s working paper came out today (pdf, 7 pages)) and nuclear energy.

Read more…

mel starrs Uncategorized Alan Covel, anaerobic digestion technology, Andrew Candish, Australia, Beth Hewis, Britain, Chris Preist, continued gas, David Milibands, David Norman, Douglas Alexander, electricity, electricity companys, electricity mix, electricity supply, electricity use minute, Energy, energy consumption, energy efficient ones, energy generation, energy saving devices, Energy Saving Trust, energy usage, Europe, Fergus Munro, food, food air miles, food choice, Food Standards Agency, food supply, George Percy, Gill Rhodes, Green Alliance, greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas emissions, Harriet Crosthwaite, Honda, House of Commons, Hungary, incineration, India, Jack Straw, Jill Dowling, John Berry, Jon Doyle, Leeds, London, lower energy lightbulbs, Martin Maloney, Michelle Slater, Miliband, Milliband, National Farmer\'s Union, non-renewable energy, nuclear energy, particular technologies, plastics, renewable electricity supply, renewable energy, Richard Billingham, Rosie Harper, Rowena Moore, Royal Society of Arts, Sam Parry, satellite dish, Sophie, Sustainability, Thames, then produce energy, Tim Duke, UK government, UK greenhouse, United Kingdom, United States, woody biomass energy, www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk