Summary of global carbon labels

UK

The vanguard of carbon labelling, UK’s Carbon Trust, has calculated the product carbon footprint, or PCF, of over 75 products since 2006 under its pilot Carbon Reduction Label scheme. The Carbon Reduction Label displays the product’s carbon content and gives an average carbon content for the overall product group to provide context for comparison.

The Carbon Trust’s PAS2050 draft standard for calculating the PCF, published in October this year by the British Standards body (BSI), was developed on the back of the pilot scheme.

Following the conclusion of the pilot scheme, six UK companies, including Innocent Drinks, Pepsico and UK supermarket chain Tesco, have officially signed up selected products to the UK Carbon Reduction Label.

France

The first French companies to introduce voluntary carbon labelling have been supermarket chains Casino and E. Leclerc.

Casino adopted an LCA methodology developed by environmental consultancy Bio Intelligence Service (Bio IS) in early 2006. The resulting ‘l’Indice Carbone,’ label, which displays the carbon content of individual products, can be found 26 of its own brand products.

While the retailer aims to label some 3000 products in total, Aymeric Schultze, manager, Bio IS, envisages the methodology will be altered slightly in future to incorporate the UK’s PAS2050 standards.

French retailer E. Leclerc’s carbon labelling pilot scheme was developed by Paris-based consultancy Greenext. The pilot was launched in April this year in two stores in Northern France and included a total of 20,000 products.

While the French Environment and Energy Agency (ADEME) back both schemes, the voluntary nature of the schemes means they do not require audits.

Switzerland

Switzerland’s top supermarket chain, Migros, last year embarked on a product carbon labelling programme. Consumers can now find seven Migros own-brand products carrying the Climatop carbon label. A further 10-12 will carry the label in coming months, according to Heinz Schmid, director of certifying body Climatop.

Rather than displaying product carbon content, the label provides confirmation that the product is 20% more carbon efficient than its counterparts within the same product category.

MyClimate, the carbon offset company that carries out the carbon calculations on Migros’ products, uses a hybrid EIO-LCAs approach involving a detailed LCA on unique aspects of each product and EcoInvent, a global life cycle inventory (LCI) database for calculations on more generic aspects.

United States

In the US, the Washington-based Carbon Fund, an independent non-profit carbon offset provider, developed the ‘Certified Carbon Free’ label in collaboration with the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management on the basis of ISO LCA standards, the GHG Protocol and the UK Carbon Trust’s (2007) Carbon Footprint Measurement Methodology.

Six products, including those of drinks manufacturer Monarch Beverages and organic sugar company Florida Chrystals carry the label with a further five products currently under-going the LCA process. Rather than displaying product carbon content, it indicates that the products’ carbon footprint has been calculated, is continually monitored and reported and that the carbon is being offset.

Separately, the California-based Climate Conservancy, a spin-off from Stanford University, established the Climate Conscious label. Using LCA methodology, the label provides a rating (bronze, silver, gold) rather than displaying specific CO2 content.

The UK’s Carbon Trust has also set up offices in the US and is working with Coca Cola, PepsiCo and other companies on product LCAs, for the purpose of the Carbon Reduction Label.

Canada

CarbonCounted, a Toronto-based non-profit organization, developed an online database web application, CarbonConnect, which allows companies to calculate PCFs according to existing standards. Once the carbon sources have been certified by CarbonCounted’s certified auditors, the company can download the ‘Carbon Counted’ logo, which displays the product’s combined CO₂ and CO₂ equivalent content.

Currently, 40 companies, including Standard Chartered Bank and investment bank UBS carry the CarbonCounted label.

Schemes in the pipeline

Japan

Earlier this year 30 companies participated in a pilot scheme funded and coordinated by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The companies will showcase their carbon footprint labels at Japan’s ‘Eco Products 2008’ exhibition in December.

South Korea

Earlier this year, ten Korean companies provided products to be included within a government-backed carbon label pilot scheme that is expected to be fully operational by January 2009.

Germany

The German government-backed ‘Product Carbon Footprint’ pilot labelling scheme () was launched in April this year. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and science institutes Öko-Institut, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and THEMA1 coordinated the pilot.

Sweden

Swedish organic standards association, Krav, is currently developing a carbon label for locally manufactured food products.

China

The China Energy Conservation Investment Corporation (CECIC) is currently working with the Carbon Trust on a series of feasibility studies to assess the PCF of Chinese businesses and products.

California Carbon Label

The Californian Carbon Label forms part of The Carbon Labeling Act of 2008, a bill that is expected to pass into legislation mid-next year. According to McMahon, the standard for measuring carbon content will likely adopt a hybrid environmental Input-Output LCA (EIO-LCAs) approach, which combines company measurements of energy use with national averages of embedded carbon for purchased inputs. She says that the standard will not be finalized until the bill is passed.

EU

While the European Commission is reviewing “how carbon footprint can be practically and meaningfully included in its criteria in a systematic way” at this stage it remains non-committal to the concept of carbon labelling.

Nevertheless, it has commissioned Italian consulting firm Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), to develop a Carbon Footprint Measurement Toolkit in cooperation with the Swedish Environmental Management Council (MSR).

According to the MSR, the measurement toolkit is being designed be used by applicants of the EU Eco label, as well as for regulatory purposes for the Eco-labelling boards, and the Commission.


Facts: Other countries assessing carbon labelling

Australia
Finland