Carbon Footprints and Food Systems
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A company that prints the Carbon Trust carbon label on a product commits to an emission reduction across the whole of that particular supply chain within two years. If it fails to achieve this, it will lose the right to use the label. This means that any product can receive the carbon label, which is seen as an encouragement for all businesses to reduce the carbon footprints of their products. In contrast, the Migros and Swedish approach to labeling (see below) only award a label to the most climate-friendly products within a product group in order to stimulate competition for the label. The PAS 2050 will be reviewed and updated in 2010. International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)
ISO has started to develop a new international standard for carbon footprinting of products and services (ISO 14067). The standard will consist of two main parts on quantification and communication, respectively. The standards are expected to be completed in 2011. A first dra of the ISO standard is expected to be made available for comment by mid-2009. World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development
The WRI and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have announced their intention to develop two new standards for product and supply chain greenhouse gas accounting and reporting. These institutions have previously developed the most widely used standard for the measurement and management of greenhouse gas emissions at the company level (GHG Protocol). The new standards will include guidelines on life cycle accounting and reporting, both at the product and the company level. The new standards are necessary to enable the inclusion of the whole life cycle of a product and to enable businesses to include the whole supply chain beyond their own operating boundaries. This will allow them to achieve emission reductions within the whole supply chain, leading to more sustainable consumption pa erns. The development of the new standards will be a multistakeholder, consensus-based process involving businesses, policymakers, NGOs, academics, and other experts and stakeholders from around the world. Currently, over 300 stakeholders are involved. Various technical working groups are currently looking into specific accounting topics (e.g., boundary se ing and allocation, data collection and quantification of emissions). Dra guidelines will be reviewed by a stakeholder advisory group and made available for public comment before being finalized. The current timeline of the project suggests that dra guidelines will be available in late 2009, pilot testing of dra guidelines will take place in late 2009 or early 2010, and the final guidelines will be complete in December 2010. It is likely that a WRI/WBCSD standard for product accounting will have widespread international uptake. New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Footprinting Strategy
During 2007 the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Strategy for the land-based sectors was initiated by partnership of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the primary sector. The background to this development was the desire to strengthen and position New Zealand’s land-based primary sectors to respond to the significant and increasing pressure exerted by key export markets for information on the carbon footprint of their products. The aims of the strategy do not include consumer information and education via a productbased label. Rather, the strategy is a response to an increasing demand and desire for:
more proactive involvement in international efforts for developing international guidelines for carbon footprinting providing primary producers with the means to assess their carbon footprints addressing gaps in current scientific knowledge and data availability