Welcome! Carbonlabels.org is an initiative by The Carbon Labeling Institute, a Canadian nonprofit that houses the publicly-available and publicly-influenced North American carbon label standard for the organic food industry. The standard – which utilizes environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) best practices – is currently being developed by the consultancy Conscious Brands™ with guidance from the nonprofit Zerofootprint. It is based on the developing UK carbon label standard, pioneered by the government sponsored Carbon Trust, working in conjunction with BSI Group, the UK’s National Standards Body.
What is a carbon label?
A good but imperfect number representing the total global warming emissions a food product creates over its life cycle, from farming and raw material extraction all the way to disposal of the product’s packaging.
Why carbon label?
- Global warming is a dire threat to society and the natural world, and innovative solutions are required now
- Governments, businesses and individuals all have an opportunity to help in solving the global warming crisis by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing greenhouse gas sinks
- Right now, there are ways to materially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase sinks from growing, processing, packaging and moving food products
- Increasing transparency between food producers and food buyers will provide the incentive for more climate-friendly supply chains
What use is a carbon label?
If you’re a food producer: In order for a company to move forward, they have to know where they stand. A carbon label provides a quantitative benchmark for the current global warming impact of a product’s supply chain. It also illuminates the relative importance of each emissions source in the product’s total footprint. And unlike the latest green marketing scheme, a carbon label follows a third party standard (the carbonlabels.org standard!), demonstrating a company’s commitment to staying at the forefront of transparency.
If you’re a consumer: Knowing the number of grams of carbon emitted from the production of a candy bar doesn’t help the average consumer much at all. Rather the carbon label has value for consumers as a comparative measure over time. Consumers can reference the carbon label and associated messaging to see if food producers are making real reductions in the global warming impact of their product. And just seeing the carbon label on a food’s packaging tells food buyers that a producer is committed to transparency and environmental efficiency. And because the carbon label is presented in uniform, quantitative terms, it increases consumer awareness of the relative environmental impact of different foods.