Eco Living | News & Views

UK spends more on carbon labelled goods

The total annual retail value of consumer goods sold in the UK bearing the Carbon Reduction Label has reached £2 billion, and could double in the next two years, according to a report by the Centre for Retail Research.

The announcement comes as new research shows that 9 out of 10 homes in the UK bought a carbon labelled product last year.

The milestone figure was reached after Tesco confirmed it has added the Carbon Reduction Label to its own brand dried egg and dried Finest pasta. It means that the average UK household spends £77 on carbon labelled products per year.

If sales of business (B2B) products were added, the total sales value of goods bearing the label would rise to approximately £3 billion. CEMEX UK, Marshalls plc and Continental Clothing all feature the label on their B2B products.

The Carbon Reduction Label also continues to grow internationally. Last summer, Aldi put the label on the bottles of its own-brand olive oil in stores across Australia. And last month, the New Zealand Wine Company became the first wine maker to measure and commit to reduce the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine, putting the Carbon Reduction Label on their Mobius Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

Euan Murray, director of footprinting at the Carbon Trust said:

“It’s great to see carbon labelling growing both in the UK and internationally through our partnership in Australia with Planet Ark. With the emergence of a carbon conscious consumer we are confident that more and more international brands will commit to carbon labelling as it will help deliver the triple benefits of reducing cost by reducing energy spend, boosting their company’s reputation and helping to ensure customer loyalty.”

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Marketing campaign carbon calculator launched

A new tool has been launched by Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) and Envido that will allow businesses to calculate the carbon footprint of advertising campaigns.

CarbonTrack, which has been developed in association with the Carbon Trust, has provided a benchmark for the UK advertising industry, estimating it produces two million tonnes of CO2 each year.

This figure is equivalent to the carbon footprint of heating 364,000 homes for 12 months.

The system is capable of taking into account emissions produced from “TV to radio, outdoor, magazines, newspapers, digital display and search”.

Ifti Akbar, co-managing director of Envido, energy, carbon and sustainability consultants, said the development reflects the fact carbon accounting is becoming “more sophisticated and widespread”.

“Companies utilising CarbonTrack will be ahead of the UK legislation curve and actively contributing to reducing the emissions of their industry,” he added.

Over 100 different suppliers have so far provided CarbonTrack with data, however, the system will not allow direct comparisons between different media enterprises.

The Guardian News and Media Group was recently awarded the Carbon Trust Standard for cutting its emissions by 28 percent in three years.

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CCC: UK should cut emissions by 60% by 2030

The UK should aim to cut carbon emissions by 46 percent on today’s levels within the next two decades, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has recommended.

Releasing its fourth carbon budget report, for the years 2023 to 2027, the CCC called for a 60 percent cut in emissions on 1990 levels by 2030.

It also recommended the current 2020 carbon budget should be “tightened” from a 34 percent reduction on 1990 levels to a 37 percent cut.

This is higher than the European Union target, which calls for a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Lord Adair Turner, head of the CCC, claimed: “Any less ambition would not be compatible with the 2050 target in the Climate Change Act.”

The committee named a number of factors it believes could lead to the emissions reductions required, including a “radical decarbonisation and reform of the electricity market”.

In addition, it called for a more widespread use of electric vehicles, the transformation of the UK’s built environment, and the use of more carbon-efficient practices on farms.

A combination of the use of carbon capture and storage technology, biomass and biogas heating and more energy efficient practices was said to be able to cut emissions from industry by half.

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Rainforests ‘can cope with global warming’

Previous assumptions that rainforests could become extinct due to global warming have been challenged in a new study.  Conducted by The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and published in the journal Science, the report looked at plant remains embedded in rocks during a period called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, where carbon levels increased.

During this period world temperatures were increased by three to five degrees C for a period of around 200,000 years.  The researchers found that the forests could actually have been considered to thrive in these conditions, with new plants evolving much faster than existing species, leading to an increase in biodiversity.

Carlos Jaramillo said that evidence suggests plants are already capable of coping with increases in both temperatures and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  ”What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased,” the Guardian quoted the expert as saying.

The findings perhaps contradict those of a study published in the same journal earlier this year, which suggested droughts in the southern hemisphere have decreased the ability of the world’s forests to absorb CO2.

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Fairtrade is accused of doing less for coffee farmers than Starbucks

Multinational companies such as Starbucks, Kraft and Nestlé do more for developing-world coffee farmers than the Fairtrade Foundation, according to a critical report from a free-market thinktank. Describing Fairtrade as costly, opaque and substantially unproven, the 130-page report commissioned by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) says: “Fairtrade requirements [on farmers] may well reflect the subjective views of western consumers and not the real needs of poor producers.”

The report specifically attacks the Fairtrade Foundation’s refusal to accept child labour and genetically modified technology, suggesting these strictures represent “the whims of western consumers” rather than the needs of farmers. Consistent with the IEA’s broader free-market agenda, the paper claims that open, subsidy-free international trade is the best way of advancing the interests of the world’s poorest regions.

“Fairtrade rhetoric is often seen as an unreasonable smear campaign against high-end marketeers and retailers who resist the Fairtrade model,” says the report by Dundee University lecturer Sushil Mohan. “In 2000 activist groups … launched an attack on Starbucks for exploiting farmers. Yet, given its size, Starbucks is likely to have done far more than Fairtrade to improve the lot of coffee growers in the countries from which it purchases.”

In response, the Fairtrade Foundation said the report was a “flawed, partial analysis”. It added: “It is wrong to suggest Fairtrade does not offer a long-term strategy for development. “In Mali, Fairtrade cotton farmers are earning 50% more than conventional farmers. Some 95% of the children of Mali’s Fairtrade organic farmers go to school because farming communities receive more money. This is more than double the national average in the fourth most deprived nation on earth.”

The IEA’s scathing attack comes after the Fairtrade movement enjoyed one of its most successful periods last year, breaking into the mainstream chocolate market for the first time by signing up the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk brand. The group also won a pledge from Starbucks in the UK to only use Fairtrade coffee for its espresso-based drinks. Fairtrade-certified farming co-operatives receive a “social premium” of between 5% and 10% over the open-market price for their crops, as well as a minimum price guarantee should volatile commodity markets drop below a certain level.

However, the IEA argues that western shoppers looking to make ethical choices may well be duped over how much of the additional price paid for Fairtrade goods at the checkout actually reaches Fairtrade farmers. It points to speculation that retailers and food groups may be preying on consumers’ better nature in order to add their own mark-ups on Fairtrade goods.

The report is not the first time the IEA has attacked the Fairtrade movement and the opposition has been led by Philip Booth, the thinktank’s editorial and programme director. A prominent Catholic, Booth has objected to church literature pushing Fairtrade products. “I have been told [via the Catholic diocese of Arundel website] that not to buy Fairtrade products is a sin worse than theft, that not buying Fairtrade products is making a deliberate choice to take from the poor,” he said.

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Could you give up washing?

If you are reading this article over breakfast, the chances are you have recently stepped into the shower, lathered up your hair and torso, rinsed off, towelled and blow-dried, before dousing your armpits with deodorant, and wafting on a fog of perfume or aftershave.

Then again, maybe not. The New York Times has just reported on a new trend towards what’s sometimes known as soap-dodging. Among those who have cut down on daily showers, baths or hair-washing were a woman who swipes a sliced lemon under her armpits instead of deodorant, another who uses baby wipes to freshen up after her lunchtime runs, and a salesman who shampoos only once a month and gave up anti-perspirant for three years.

Think this is only happening in the US? Think again. There are plenty of signs that this carefree attitude to cleanliness is popular in the UK too – and in some cases growing. Last year, a poll for tissue manufacturer SCA found that 41% of British men and 33% of women don’t shower every day, with 12% of people only having a proper wash once or twice a week. (These figures place us behind Australia, Mexico and France in the personal hygiene stakes.) Around the same time, research by Mintel found that more than half of British teenagers don’t wash every day – with many opting for a quick spray of deodorant to mask any stink.

Over the last few years there have been regular suggestions that daily hair-washing, or even any hair-washing at all, is quite unnecessary, with the commentator Matthew Parris admitting he hadn’t shampooed his hair for a decade, and broadcaster Andrew Marr reporting himself perfectly happy with the results when he followed suit for a short while. Many people clearly agree that a regular hair-wash is a hassle. In 2008, Boots reported a 45% rise in sales of dry shampoo ( a product that can be sprayed on hair between showers), while the Batiste brand has recently seen its sales double.

There are, of course, environmental benefits. In a bid to reduce his carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy, 51, limits his showers to about twice a week. “The rest of the time I have a sink wash,” he says. “I believe that I’m as clean as everyone else.” It has helped him to get his water consumption down to around 20 litres a day – well below the 100 to 150 average in the UK.

As McCarthy points out, it’s only recently that we have expected people to bathe or shower every day. “When I was a kid,” he says, “the normal thing was to bathe once a week.” Head much further back into history, and we find Elizabeth I bathing once a month, and James I apparently only ever washing his fingers. In 1951, almost two-fifths of UK homes were without a bath, and in 1965, only half of British women wore deodorant.

Now we have begun to fetishise extreme cleanliness, to create the kind of culture where, as McCarthy says, it’s not entirely unusual for people staying in hotels to churn through 1,000 litres of water a day – showering in the morning, after a sauna, after the swimming pool, before dinner, before bed. The international market for soaps of all kinds is now $24bn a year. And some dermatologists fear that this intense, regular washing is stripping our skin of germs that could actually be beneficial to us, that help our skin stay healthy, balanced and fresh.

It might be worth us all occasionally missing a shower or two, then, so long as we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. While being environmentally friendly is good, smelling like a bin is not.

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Biodiversity talks end with call for ‘urgent’ action

The UN biodiversity meeting in Japan has agreed a 10-year plan aimed at preserving nature.

Targets for protecting areas of land and sea were weaker than conservation scientists wanted, as was the overall target for slowing biodiversity loss. Most developing countries were pleased with measures aimed at ensuring they get a share in profits from products made from plants and other organisms.

Nations have two years to draw up plans for funding the plan. “This agreement reaffirms the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our economy and our society,” said Jim Leape, director-general of WWF International.

“Governments have sent a strong message that protecting the health of the planet has a place in international politics, and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth.” The meeting settled on targets of protecting 17% of the world’s land surface, and 10% of the oceans, by 2020.

These are regarded as too small by many conservation scientists, who point out that about 13% of the land is already protected – while the existing target for oceans is already 10%. Many poorer countries say they do not have the resources to implement such targets.

“The forest and the other biological resources we have serve the general interests of the global environment,” said Johansen Voker from Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency. “So we expect assistance to be able to effectively conserve our environment for the common good of the world community.”

Developed nations agreed to establish mechanisms for raising finance to help them – which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2020. They are required to have a plan to raise such sums in place by 2012, when Brazil will host the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The sums might appear astronomical – particularly when you recall that governments are already committed to raising $100bn (£125bn) per year for climate change by 2020 – but French Ecology Minister Chantal Jouanno said it was not impossible. “If you think that to solve the problem of biodiversity only public funds can be sufficient, it’s just a dream, because the amounts necessary are so huge,” she told BBC News.

“It needs to be private funds too – and not only voluntary private funds but… binding funds [from business].

“You are making profits from the use of biodiversity; so it’s logical and it’s legitimate that those profits return to biodiversity.” The trickiest issue – the agreement on sharing profits from the development of products drawing on genetic resources in developing countries, known as Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) – was resolved after developed nations, led by the EU, made some crucial concessions.

In particular, they agreed that the measures should cover anything made from this genetic material, technically known as “derivatives”. They had previouslty argued for a much narrower scope.

Conservation groups warned that the agreement as it stands does not guarantee the erosion of species and ecosystems will be stopped. “Participants may be leaving Nagoya, but they still need to be working to save life on this planet from Monday morning,” said Jane Smart, head of the species programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“We need to harness the energy of this meeting, where we’ve seen huge and significant commitments in terms of reinvigorated political will as well as real money from the likes of Japan, and in terms of pledges to increase protected areas from the likes of Guinea Bissau.” Japan looks set to emerge with credit, having steered the tough negotiations through its final hours.

“What the Japanese government really wants to do here is to get agreement so they can be proud of the Nagoya CBD,” said Wakao Hanaoka, oceans campaigner with Greenpeace Japan. “What is really needed, since the Japanese government has just started its role of chairing the CBC until 2012, is to keep doing what they have promised to international society.” This meant, he suggested, taking effective conservation in the marine environment – including backing cuts in fisheries for threatened but lucrative fish such as bluefin tuna.

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Nuclear opposition ‘has added to carbon emissions’

One billion extra tonnes of carbon has been emitted because of opposition to nuclear power generation, experts have claimed.  Speaking to producers of a Channel 4 documentary, campaigners claimed that environmental advocates are in danger of repeating the mistakes of the past by continuing to oppose nuclear power, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Campaigner Mark Lynas said that nuclear opposition has already added to the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, because the objection to the technology in the 1970s and 80s led to the construction of highly-polluting coal power plants.  ”In hindsight that was obviously a mistake, but it is one that today’s environmental lobby groups seem determined to repeat,” he is quoted by the news provider as saying.  But, Ben Stewart from Greenpeace, said a real debate on the issue is needed.

“With the threat of climate change we look at all options but in our opinion [nuclear power and GM] do not stack up,” he is quoted as saying.  A KPMG report released earlier this year suggested that investment in nuclear power is needed if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets.

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Carbon footprint labels: the latest aid for ethical shopping

Shoppers familiar with seeing fair trade, organic or rainforest labels during their weekly shop will have to get used to anotherlogo: the carbon footprint.

Leading food brands are increasingly using the Government’s black footprint logo and, according to research published today, it will become the second most common ethical label in UK shops by the end of this year.

The Centre for Retail Research forecasts that annual sales of the Carbon Reduction Label run by the publicly funded Carbon Trust would hit £2bn by the end of 2010, putting it behind only the Red Tractor farm assurance scheme (£10bn), but ahead of the Soil Association’s organic mark (£1.5bn); Fairtade (£800m); RSPCA Freedom Foods (£800m), and the smaller Rainforest Alliance and Marine Stewardship Council schemes.

For shoppers, the black footprint logo shows that producers are working behind the scenes with the Carbon Trust to identify and reduce carbon emissions that cause global warming.

In some cases, the labels also display the amount of CO2 generated by each product, giving consumers a greater insight into how much unseen pollution is caused by their purchases – sometimes with surprising results. The amount of CO2 emitted generally weighs more than the product, and there can be substantial variations between different brands or types of the same product.

Tesco has been the most enthusiastic supporter of the scheme, carrying out a commitment made three years ago to carbon label all of its 70,000 food lines. It has so far put footprints on 100 own-brand products, including semi-skimmed milk (800 grams per pint); orange juice (1.1kg per litre); and toilet roll (1.1 grams per sheet).

Walkers, the UK’s best-selling crisps, and baker Kingsmill, which is owned by Primark’s parent company Associated British Foods, have adopted the idea too. Shoppers can already see that at 1.3kg of CO2 per 800 grams, a loaf of wholemeal bread generates 15 times more carbon dioxide than a small packet of crisps (80 grams).

However, other products have not been included, possibly because shoppers would be put off by how much pollution they generate. Meat has “astronomical” emissions according to one supermarket source, something borne out by research. A study by Japan’s National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science found three years ago that 1kg of beef released the equivalent of 36kg of CO2.

Alcohol, too, has high emissions. While a 330ml can of Coca-Cola has 170 grams, Adnams eco-bitter East Green has 432 grams per half-litre. Consumers can, however, slash the impact of their purchases by using the same products differently – washing clothes at 30C rather than 40C saves 160 grams of CO2.

Currently, these insights are interesting, but they could become more important. Two years ago the Commons Environmental Audit committee said the Government should give everyone a personal carbon allowance.

Euan Murray, the Carbon Trust’s head of footprinting, said he did not know if all products would eventually be carbon labelled, but added: “We are increasingly seeing people recognise that things have a carbon footprint, and they want to do something about it.”

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Star names try to beat slump in eco-clothing

The dream of eco-friendly, fashion is not wearing well. While high-profile new eco-clothing lines from the designer Katharine Hamnett and Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde may give the appearance that it is boom time for environmentally friendly fashion, stagnant sales figures are leading analysts to question whether there really is a market for sustainable style.

Hamnett will launch her long-awaited organic jeans line – seven years in development – at Paris fashion week in October, while Hynde is collaborating with her Welsh producer-boyfriend J P Jones to create a rock-inspired eco-fashion line of handbags, skinny jeans and cowboy boots.

Experts have cited the recession, a lack of fashion-led eco-designs and even growing consumer indifference as possible reasons for this lack of growth.

“Many companies slowed their programmes in 2008 and 2009 because of the economic climate and the lack of finance,” said Simon Ferrigno, an organic cotton consultant. Cotton makes up about 90 per cent of the UK’s organic textile market. “There remain problems with consumer awareness and education. Celebrities in this sense are a big help in bringing consumers on board.”

The power of celebrity endorsement was demonstrated with the much-trumpeted launch of Emma Watson’s new collection for the Fair Trade, environmentally friendly brand People Tree. While the firm claims the Harry Potter actress has given sales a lift, it was unable to back this up with figures.

Industry watchers believe that environmentally friendly fashion needs to be more design-led if it is to compete. “As much as I admire eco-shops, it has got to be in mainstream fashion shops,” said Hamnett. Her 30-piece denim collection is going to be sold in major upmarket retailers, and will cost between £100 and £150.

Other brands have shrugged off disappointing sales growth, saying they are motivated not by demand from their customers but by a belief in the long-term advantages of environmentally friendly practices.

The autumn will see environmentally friendly fashion thrust further into the spotlight with London fashion week event Estethica. The event, which promotes cutting-edge sustainable designers and is funded by the British Fashion Council, has expanded over its nine seasons from showcasing 13 designers to 37.

While sales of organic clothing in the UK may have slowed, the latest Organic Exchange market report highlighted that the worldwide market for organic cotton grew 35 per cent from 2008 to 2009, from $3.2bn to $4.3bn.

However, reports by Ecotextile magazine found that over-optimistic growth forecasts have resulted in an oversupply of organic cotton, pushing the price down by 15 per cent, which has had a negative effect on farmers. It also points to the need for environmental costs to be included in market prices, arguing for a guideline base price for organic materials.

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