DEBATE: Is carbon the new calorie when it comes to product labelling and transparency?
Is carbon the new calorie when it comes to product labelling and transparency?
Bracken Darrell, chief executive of Logitech, says YES.
Nutritional information on food and drink packaging has been empowering consumers for decades. Now, carbon is the new calorie.
Consumers deserve to understand the carbon impact of the products they buy — the impact of the full lifetime of a product, from material sourcing through manufacturing, distribution, consumer use, and ultimately to disposal at the end of the product’s life.
It’s complex to do, but it needs to happen. We have to make a change.
As of today, we are the first consumer electronics company to pledge to communicate the carbon impact of all products on packaging and on our website. It will help people make more informed purchasing choices.
This is just a start — but there’s no better way of moving other players in the same direction than going out and doing it. It will take an industry-wide effort to truly make a difference. Companies need to collaborate with their consumers — and people should put pressure on us all to do more.
Philip Booth, professor at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham and senior academic fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, says NO.
Despite decades of talk of “bonfires of regulation”, politicians are addicted to it. Whenever there is a problem or imperfection in society, it is thought that the solution is more regulation.
Yet, in every walk of life, people are buried under rule books frightened to use their initiative.
It has been proposed that companies should be required to publish the carbon footprint of producing their products. In many cases, this would be almost impossible and it would be unbearably expensive for smaller companies.
How would we ever set the parameters for the calculation? Just think of the number of different companies and processes that go into making and distributing mobile phones.
It is worth reflecting on the justification for this proposal. It arises from the correct observations that carbon emissions are damaging and that consumers care about their carbon emissions. If that is the case, then the publication of carbon emissions on products would be used as a key marketing tool by better performers. Indeed, this already happens in the airline industry where emissions are easy to calculate.
If the idea were so good, you would not have to make it compulsory. The post-Covid world does not need more regulation.
Main image credit: Getty