The lowly label – pored over by some, glanced at by others and ignored by many. And yet, it’s a powerful multi-purpose tool used by companies and industries to embed their messages. In a supermarket setting, they provide nutritional information, how the food was produced and processed e.g., fair trade, and marketing e.g., “natural”, “sustainable” – very often to allay consumer concerns. It remains an open question how often the claims are backed up by practices or for that matter by standards that are legally binding.
Nonetheless, reading a label provides a moment of reflection, education and a choice to align purchases with one’s values. Two young Canadians have decided to leverage this opportunity to advocate for consumer information about the carbon footprint of the products we buy. Stephani McPhee and Eli Lusty co-founded Carbon Labels Canada with the express purpose of advocating for carbon footprint labels on high volume products across Canada so that consumers can make an educated decision at the point of purchase.
“Every product purchased has an impact on the earth but the level of impact is hidden from consumers,” says Lusty. “This is a simple question of information access for consumers – a force that directs economic output.
“Research in countries and stores that have implemented carbon labelling indicate that consumers change their behaviour towards less polluting products when given the option. But as things stand currently [in Canada], there is no option.”
Stephani – who is studying urban planning and environmental sustainability at Dalhousie University, says their strategy is to raise consumer awareness and support for this type of information and bring about a change in public opinion that will put pressure on politicians to develop policy and legislation.
McPhee is realistic about the challenges they face. “It’s extremely difficult to fully look into the life cycle of a product. There isn’t quite enough tracking of where everything’s been and the processes on the farm, to calculate the carbon footprint.” This includes GHG emissions from fertilizers, manure, land conversion, livestock digestion, transportation, packaging and processing. Currently, food production is estimated to contribute 26% of global GHG emissions.
A second issue is to avoid green washing. To be effective, carbon labels need to be credible but there are hundreds of eco labels worldwide claiming that a third party has looked at the claims. “The easy solution is a certified government body that ensures consistency and validity,” says Stephani.
“We both try to be very aware of the embedded energy in the food we consume but this is an issue a lot of consumers have no idea about. Knowledge and understanding are hugely lacking in Canada. None of this is made transparent when you’re grocery shopping. The awareness factor is a critical first step for people to be able to go to a grocery store and then vote with their dollar. They’re consuming products and could be creating demand for products that are less energy-intensive, less beef for instance.
“We’ve seen research saying it’s very effective and we’ve seen evidence of it working elsewhere”. One study found that labels showing environmental information improved the carbon footprint of a person’s diet by about 5% compared with standard food labels.
Last month, restaurant chain Just Salad, became the first one in the US to display the carbon footprint of every item on its online menu. And in the UK, Quorn, a leading meat alternatives company, has started carbon labelling its products. Quorn has been working with The Carbon Trust (UK) to measure the carbon emissions of its operations since 2012.
Alexander Frantzen, founder and chief executive of Carbon Calories -- a company that produces carbon footprint reports aimed at consumers – told Forbes magazine that “Once a few brands begin to put carbon footprint labels on their products, we believe that consumers will use that information to inform their decisions; and will begin to demand it from other companies.”
Stephani and Eli are still in the research phase of their project but they’ll be reaching out to local and national organizations as well as decision-makers to bring the issue to the forefront and drive policy change.
They are passionate about helping consumers make more informed choices as people become increasingly concerned about the climate crisis and conscious of their own impact. By advocating for using labels to provide carbon emissions data to enable consumers to manage the environmental impact of their food choices, the lowly label can become another positive force for change.