Tiptoe through the footprints

Kingsmill would have us believe that carbon labelling is well, the best thing since sliced bread.

Operations director Nick Law explains that the company set up a dedicated cross-functional team, and began work with the Carbon Trust (CT) last November. Environmental consultancy Sustain compiled and analysed data over a six-month period. The final calculation and label then appeared on three products in June this year.

Each Everyday White loaf sports a front-of-pack carbon dioxide footprint logo along with the declaration: 'Reducing with the Carbon Trust'. Less prominent on the pack is the 1.3kg carbon calculation and a stated commitment to reduce this figure.

Says Law: "Research shows that our consumers are deeply concerned about the environment, and they want to know what we're doing about it."

The experience of buying one of these loaves while on a summer self-catering 'staycation' has stuck with Asda's head of corporate policy for sustainability and ethics Julian Walker-Palin.

He understands why Kingsmill, like others, should want to work with the CT on assessing its products' impact in this way.

But he says: "Even though I actually work within this sphere, the kilograms of carbon meant nothing to me. What does the figure tell me? And could it be a tool for me to use for a more sustainable lifestyle?"

He adds: "We're very keen to reduce embedded carbon in our products. But where we differ from Tesco and the CT is on what we tell consumers." He explains that Asda itself prefers to "choice edit" products on the basis of their sustainable credentials.

Walker-Palin draws a telling comparison with nutrition labelling and on-pack guidance for healthier eating. "We see that most of our consumers are too busy to make decisions on this basis," he reports. "So what is the likelihood that they're going to look at a carbon number?"

Meanwhile, Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King has been quoted as saying that current carbon labelling models will not provide consumers with the basis for purchasing decisions. The CT, for its part, claims his comments were "taken out of context" and seemed to be based on a misunderstanding of what was included in a carbon calculation.

In fact, general manager for carbon footprinting at the CT Euan Murray explains that it has done, and continues to do, footprinting work for Sainsbury. "We've done measurement work among all of their milk suppliers, for instance, even though they may not be ready to stick the figure on the side of their bottles," he says.

But when it comes to labelling, while Asda and Sainsbury tiptoe around the topic, Tesco has very publicly rushed in where other supermarkets fear to tread.

Carbon reduction labels on the retailer's fresh milk range followed hard on the heels of orange juice and other food and non-food own-label products. Tesco has stated that it aims to extend the process to 500 products by the end of the year.

On-pack suggestions about cooking options and recycling allow consumers to engage with a product's carbon footprint, says the retailer, and illustrate how their own behaviour can affect it.

The consultant's perspective​

Tesco's carbon assessments have been carried out by environmental consultancy ERM. Partner and head of the UK climate change team Charles Allison gives his perspective on Tesco's pursuit of carbon labelling.

"Retailers such as the Co-Op, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury took up the wider sustainability agenda first," he recalls. "Tesco had little focus at all on the environment up to three or four years ago." So carbon was an obvious area where it could take a lead.

In the case of milk, Tesco found that the production stage (notably methane emissions from cows) strikingly accounted for over 75% of the declared footprint for whole milk. The contribution of processing was less than 10%.

Kingsmill estimates that, for its white loaf, raw material production accounts for 43% of carbon emissions.

For many, though, the question is not 'Do you communicate this data at all?', but 'Which data do you communicate and how?'.

Regarding the CT's carbon reduction labels, Allison at ERM says: "The jury is still out on whether this is something consumers really understand and find useful. One of the benefits to Tesco of taking a lead here is that they will be the first to have consumer research on this."

The price tag? Clearly, there is a consultancy cost where an outside agency such as Sustain or ERM carries out the work. Allison quotes a broad range between £5,000 and £20,000 per product. But Kingsmill's Law states: "The main cost for us was the time the internal cross-functional team put in to map our processes."

Both ERM and brand-owners emphasise that each audit can potentially highlight energy and raw material savings, which may be worth substantially more.

When it comes to time requirements, Tesco's estimate of 12 weeks per product compares favourably with Kingsmill's six-month process. With Walkers, Murray at the CT points out that the initial 12-week assessment for just one of its crisp packs was subsequently streamlined to two weeks for the complete range of the brand's other crisp products.

Murray also explains that online tools, such as the CT's Footprint Expert, are increasingly allowing brand-owners to carry out their own assessments, and reduce both the time and cost involved.

But however accessible these tools become, many will point to the relative lack of complexity of most products so far assessed. What happens when you move into multi-stage processes and multiple ingredients from different sources?

Allison at ERM explains: "You focus on the most important ingredients. In a cake, for instance, that might be the 10 most significant. You might choose to look only at those ingredients over a given percentage of the total leaving out the lemon essence in the icing, for example."

As Walkers' experience illustrates, there are also clear economies of scale here. "Instead of looking at one pasta sauce, you look at 25," says Allison. "You won't need to do 25 separate analyses."

Rather than recipe complexity, supply-chain communication may be the main factor in speedy and efficient analysis. "The critical issue is how quickly you can get data from overseas suppliers," Allison warns.

Despite the challenges, many will want to go through this process for their own internal auditing and reporting, or to have their answers ready before retailers ask the question.

But how many manufacturers will choose to publicise their calculations on-pack? And how are retailer policies likely to evolve in this area?

Asda's Walker-Palin has an answer. "If it becomes clear that the logo has suddenly started to mean something to more consumers, then we will re-evaluate it," he says. "But I think we're currently a long way away from that point." FM