We’re all familiar with nutritional labels on food. They help us identify the ingredients, and the nutritional value of what we eat. The transparency that these labels give consumers, allow them to make quick, informed decisions on what to buy.

With the environment becoming a bigger and bigger issue by the day, many consumers are demanding to know the environmental impact of the things they buy. And businesses are beginning (slowly) to respond.

The concept it to label consumer goods with something similar to a nutritional label, but for the environment. Tesco, a major grocery reatiler around the globe, has made commitments to make the carbon footprints of it’s products as easy to compare as their nutritional information or their price. The photo on this post is from a Tesco store, showing the carbon footprint of one brand of juice and comparing to others available for sale.

While displaying a carbon footprint is one step, it’s possible to take this idea even further. Products could clearly display information such as the amount of:

• Carbon dioxide released
• Water consumed
• Raw materials used
• Waste sent to landill

We would be able to clearly identify which products were better for the environment, rather than having to rely on often misleading marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Unlike food, the environmental impact of a product is largely external, while nutritional information is internal. That means that for nutritional labels, we simply have to look at what is in the food, while for environmental labels we have to look both inside and around it.

We need to look at the raw materials that were used, and the methods used to extract them. We need to consider the factory where the product was built, and how it was powered. We need to consider how the product is used (a car for example, emits carbon dioxide as it runs). And we need to look at how the product is disposed of, as well as everything else in between.

It quickly becomes a case of ‘where do we draw the line’.

Until we have some sort of accepted standard in place, it will be hard to compare one product to another, as we don’t know whether they have included the same things.

Fortunately, some standards are being developed. The Carbon Trust in the UK now certifies products for the carbon dioxide emissions, with the certification being removed if a product increases its emissions per unit from year to year.