Although Tesco recently announced that they intended to introduce carbon labels on every one of their 70,000 products, this has been overtaken now by the Carbon Trust’s initiative to go ahead and launch a carbon label through a trial involving Boots, Walkers and Innocent. One of the North East’s leading experts on supply chain management is calling for food suppliers to follow this lead and get counting the carbon cost of their operations.
David Oglethorpe, Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Newcastle Business School (NBS), part of Northumbria University, is warning that this agenda is now gathering pace and soon more and more retailers, some of whom have already made significant environmental pledges to reduce the carbon load of their operations, are likely to follow this lead and we may well see the adoption of an industry-wide ‘green’ standard which calculates the carbon footprint of products.
Professor David Oglethorpe of NBS
David said:
"To measure the carbon footprint of products, the Carbon Trust trial means that retailers will need to carry out a significant examination of the entire life cycle for each product and will face a raft of different supply chain issues. From processing, manufacture, packaging, distribution and storage, right through to waste handling and recycling, the further back in the chain you go, the more the information they will need. This means the onus will be on the suppliers, processors and manufacturers to provide the information needed to make the carbon calculation."
With specific expertise in the food sector, David is confident that the noises made by Tesco and others are promising and there is now some real activity through the Carbon Trust label, which have been announced in a very timely manner with regard to the new governmental climate change targets. However, as the commentary from the spokespeople from the participating companies shows, it is the whole of their supply chains that will be scrutinised. In order to be preferred suppliers in future, those further up the supply chain will need to be able to work out their own footprint. The earlier this happens, the quicker suppliers may be able to take advantage of any premiums attached.
The Carbon Trust have also added a crucial rider to the use of their label - ‘Reduce it or Lose it’ - where failure to reduce the carbon footprint over a two year period will mean disqualification from use of the label. This means that the ultimate goal is not simply to measure, but to reduce, and this needs to send shock-waves throughout the supply chain.
However, David warns, this isn’t necessarily about being small or ‘local’. “A big part of this debate is obviously the food miles issue - the big supermarkets know they need to buy and sell locally where this is possible or makes sense, but they also know that they need to be able to stock the right range of goods and services. Although buying and selling locally sounds 'wholesome' and will undoubtedly cut down on food miles it may not reduce overall energy use and the carbon footprint.
"If, for example, twenty 'local' sausage makers could displace one large scale centralised 'national' sausage maker, the food miles bill would certainly reduce, but each of those twenty small producers would have their own vans, premises, machines and fuel bills. Basic economies of scale tell us that the large producer will be more efficient on those costs, and so will use less energy inputs. Such complexities must be addressed as businesses throughout the supply chain attempt to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change”, added David.
For more you can read Professor Oglethorpe's Opinion Piece in The Grocer regarding Carbon Footprinting.
Date Posted: 19.03.07