Carbon labels dumped

by Emilia Terzon

UK supermarket Tesco has ditched its carbon reduction plan four years after pledging to label all of its 70,000 items with the accreditation.

Tesco has been featuring the Carbon Trust's carbon reduction label on products since 2007, but is now saying the plan is too time-consuming and costly.

It expected other retailers to follow their lead giving the label "critical mass but it hasn't happened".

The company claims each product's footprint takes several months to calculate; or about 250 years' worth of research to ensure everything was labelled.

The decision comes as Tesco was ranked 93 out of over 2000 participants in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Scheme in the UK last year.

Sir Terry Leahy, then-CEO of Tesco, hailed the decision as the start of a "revolution in green consumption" when it launched in 2007 to much fanfare, despite fellow retailers being dubious about the extent of research involved in the scheme.

Tesco has since labelled about 500 of its products and begun research for another 1100, but a recent company statement now says it'll move focus from individual bids to larger global supply chain issues.

“It’s only four years, but the Carbon Trust process has become something of an anachronism,” says Martin Chilcott, CEO of online sustainability company 2degrees, which was recruited by Tesco and Asda for the project.

“Tesco is not saying it doesn’t want to stop carbon foot-printing, but you can’t do it with 70,000 lines with the time it was taking.”

Keywords: tesco , environment, carbon reduction, supermarket

Comments:

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 by

I'm not sure why people want to stick the boot into Tesco and Sir Terry Leahy for showing leadership and having the balls to step out ahead of the crowd in supporting a reduction in carbon emissions - apart from vocal, but small climate sceptic groups, most people applaud such moves. Importantly, most of the brands on Tesco's shelves are owned by other corporations and so Tesco's comments are targeted at them as well as the other retailers. Tesco was never going to pay for the assessment of all 70,000 products - they were hoping that corporations were going to partner with them to achieve this grand vision.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 by

Didn't Tesco also try putting little aeroplanes stickers on some produce lines to inform shoppers that there were elevated carbon footprints? And didn't shoppers respond by buying those items in preference, indicating that they valued freshness (planes are faster, right?) over the imagined damage of carbon? Most consumers never really bought the "CO2 as a pollutant" bollocks, anyway, so Tesco were spending all that time and money just to appease a vocal, but small, lobby group.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 by

Sir Terry Leahy, then-CEO of Tesco: How incompetent! Did he not consider it may take 15.3 million work-hours (aka 250 years) - to map the 70,000 lines..? Why was his personal assets not sold up as a consequence? Eg: As Tesco shareholders' pittance compensation for his concomitant decision.

- John

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