British supermarket chain to “carbon label” all products
produce.jpgNow this is intriguing. At the same time that Sam’s
Club is putting carbon on the shelf for the first time in the
U.S., Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in Britain, has
announced that it will begin labeling all 70,000 products on its
shelves with the amount of carbon generated from the production,
transport, and consumption of those items.  I’ve been fascinated
with exactly this idea for a long time (ever since I read
Omnivore’s Dilemma), but I never dreamt that a retailer would
actually pursue it. Now I only wish I had mentioned the idea on
this blog last year so that I could take credit for my
prescience now.  Environmentalists have mooted the idea of
“carbon labelling” but companies have struggled because of the
complexity of measuring the carbon required to produce each
item.  The “carbon footprint” of a product includes the energy
required for its manufacture, packaging and transport to the
supermarket shelves.  There are no well-es