Isra-Mart srl : Retailers begin to buy into carbon labelling

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Isra-Mart SRL news:

Around £2bn worth of goods sold each year now carry carbon footprint information, according to new figures from the Carbon Trust, but critics have been quick to point out that the majority of retailers have been slow to support the new standard.

Today, the Carbon Trust hailed the results of a new survey showing that nine out of 10 households in the UK bought products bearing its Carbon Reduction Label over the past year, surpassing its expectations when the scheme was launched in 2007.

It added that the inclusion of business-to-business sales would bring the value of goods bearing the label up to £3 billion.

However, the figure is dwarfed by the approximate £200bn UK shoppers spent on food and drink last year. And although figures from the Centre for Retail Research predict the market for labelled products will increase rapidly to £15.2bn by 2015, this would still only equate to around 7.6 per cent of total spend in 2009.

The scheme has been bolstered by the involvement of a raft of household names, including Walkers, Kingsmill, Tate & Lyle, and Tesco, which in 2007 pledged to calculate and display the carbon footprints of its entire 70,000-strong product line.

So far, more than 100 of Tesco's own-brand products have been labelled, the most recent being its own-brand dried Finest pasta. But the retailer admitted to the Guardian that by April next year it will have labelled only 500 products and footprinted 1,000, representing a fraction of its entire product range.

However, the Carbon Trust remains upbeat about the prospects for the scheme and urged other retailers to begin calculating the carbon footprint of their products.

Euan Murray, head of footprinting at the Carbon Trust, said that calculating a product's carbon footprint helped firms to identify inefficiencies and waste in the supply chain, while also making the product more attractive to green consumers.

"If businesses that produce products want to cut carbon and take advantage of a growing desire for green goods, then carbon footprinting and labelling is one of the best ways to get ahead of the game and be recognised for their actions," he said.