Shopping down the carbon

BSI standard aims to make carbon footprint comparisons simple Shoppers are one step closer to being able to compare the carbon footprint of the products and services they purchase, now that the UK is unveiling a common standard approved and managed by BSI British Standards.

Thanks to the standard, known as PAS2050, carbon footprints of products can be assessed consistently in grammes of CO2 equivalent, said Graham Sinden, technical manager of the Carbon Trust, which co-sponsored the standard along with the government.

Boots, Walkers, Innocent Drinks and Tesco are among the businesses to have trialled the standard so far, he said.

It covers the whole lifecycle of products, from sourcing raw materials to disposing or recycling waste – and can be applied to offers as diverse as financial services and electrical goods.

Sinden said the standard would help in two ways: first, by helping companies measure and reduce the carbon footprint of an individual product or service; and second, by allowing them to communicate that footprint on a customer label or in other marketing material.

For that reason, the Carbon Trust has published a code of good practice on communicating the carbon footprint of a product. This stresses that it’s important for businesses to give people figures on the whole lifecycle, rather than a small part of it.

“Consumers believe they want this information, but they don’t necessarily trust the maker of the product to be the arbiter of that information,” said Sinden. “So there is value in having a third-party standard that’s been consulted on and widely agreed.”
– Chris Alden

26 February 2009

Chris Alden