The "emission labels" and other carbon footprint news

I just spent three days in London and one thing that surprised me is the extent to which the concepts of "carbon footprint" and "carbon neutrality" and "carbon offsetting" have become mainstream in Britain.

Every single day there were several stories in the newspapers and on TV referring to them, with both tabloid and serious tones: supermarkets pledging to become "carbon neutral" (Marks & Spencer) or to introduce "carbon labeling" (Tesco); Prince Charles canceling his traditional annual ski vacation in the Swiss Alps to keep a commitment to reduce his carbon footprint (and being criticized for flying to New York to pick up an environmental award); explanations on how to measure your own footprint; reports on the "carbon reduction action groups" (CRAGs) which are multiplying across the country and whose members commit themselves to measure their carbon emissions, curb them, and pay penalties if they exceed the limits; further discussions of the "Stern Review" of last October which analyzed the economic costs of climate change; anticipations of the upcoming fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental panel on climate change, which should be released soon and which concludes that global warming is happening faster than expected; other reports concluding that CO2 concentrations are also raising faster, etc.

A few details on the Tesco announcement. Tesco is the UK's biggest retailer and it said that it will introduce emission labels on all the 70'000 products it carries, to inform shoppers of the exact carbon cost of each product in the same way they can compare salt content or calories - while an aeroplane symbol will be put on those transported by air (1 kg of kiwi flown from New Zealand to Europe discharges 5 kg of carbon; carrying 100 grams of beans from Kenya to London by air releases at least 340 grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere). Tesco also pledged to cut by half the emissions produced by its stores by 2020, and slash by half the amount of CO2 produced in its distribution network.

Other UK chains such as M&S, Asda and Sainsbury's have also unveiled plans to become carbon neutral and cut the amount of waste they send to landfill. And in the US, Wal-Mart has made a half-a-billion commitment to use only renewable energy by 2009. Many details of the Tesco plan are unclear, and the move is clearly part of Tesco's search for green and good citizenship credentials (last year, it started putting wind turbines and solar panels on stores and pledged to source more food locally - but it's the same chain that drove thousands of local shops out of business), but the essence is that supermarkets have been part of the problem for many years sourcing products where they are cheapest, independently of the environmental impact (fresh flowers flown in from Bolivia anyone?), increasing the quantities and worsening the quality of packaging, building megastores that promote motorized shopping, etc. They must now become part of the solution - and sending less waste to landfill, using less energy, and better inform customers are all crucial step.

What I find particularly intriguing in the Tesco announcement is the proposed carbon labeling. First to appear - already in the coming months - will be the airplane stickers saying "airfreighted" (Marks & Spencer is working on a similar approach). The stickers are not a totally new concept: twenty or thirty years ago, fresh beans flown to Britain from Kenyan farms were labelled with an aircraft symbol. But that was done to denote freshness, kind of saying "they come from afar but they got here fast". Now they will underscore the craziness built into the system thanks to cheap transportation. The "carbon footprint" labels will follow later: it is still not clear how it can be measured for each individual product (direct and indirect emissions from production, distribution and consumption) in order to be credible, generally accepted and easily understood, but if introduced it will be groundbreaking.

This poses a set of issues:

• while air freight (like air travel) gets the most ink, only a few percent of the products imported into any given European country is flown in: it is too costly. Most imported products are shipped. The "airfreighted" sticker will go only on the former, but the carbon calculation will have to include all.
• being transported by air doesn't automatically mean "environmentally unfriendly": fruits grown locally, but out of season in heated glasshouses, may have a higher energy cost.
• reducing food miles poses a big ethical and political dilemma: the case for lowering trade barriers with developing countries so that their products can more easily get into northern developed markets is a strong one. Climate change and the rise in CO2 levels completely re-opens it. As Terry Leahy, the CEO of Tesco, poses it: "should we shun fair trade horticulture from East Africa to save CO2, or champion it as an important contribution to alleviating poverty?"

There are other measures that I would like big retailers to start taking, however. For example: Tesco has also announced that it will significantly cut the price of low-energy light bulbs. What about stopping selling high-consumption bulbs altogether?