Lifecycle assessment
61) Labels can cover a product's pre-purchase
life (origins, manufacture, transport and other supply-chain issues)
and/or its post-purchase life (energy consumption, product use
guidelines, guidelines on disposal, &c.). 'Lifecycle' labels
aim to assess environmental impact from the product's origins
through to disposal or recycling. Products will have a carbon
footprint from their pre-purchase phase, and there will also be
a carbon impact for their post-purchase phase, ranging from significant
(e.g. a car) to negligible (e.g. a packet of crisps). Taken together,
these measurements could form a lifecycle footprint. The Government
has signalled its intention to make greater use of lifecycle analysis
as a first step in identifying the appropriate actions and standards
to be used for a particular product.[87]
This kind of assessment could certainly be valuable, but it is
too complex to be transferred wholesale into consumer-labels.
62) Attempts to reach lifecycle footprints even
for basic products can result in complex calculations based on
a highly hypothetical average usage. EST noted that a carrot could
be eaten raw, cooked in a microwave, or boiled in a pan of water.[88]
It is difficult to see how any in-use measurement for food and
drink products could ever be of genuine use to a consumer, whereas
labels allowing them to select locally-produced or organically
grown carrots could engage their interest and have a significant
impact in at least one environmental dimension. For shampoo, only
seven per cent of its carbon footprint is in the manufacturing,
bottling and distribution; 93 per cent comes from heating the
water and using the product itself.[89]
Information of this kind would be of little use to consumers:
their choice becomes irrelevant as most shampoos would have a
similar in-use impact. It is more important to encourage consumers
to install more efficient boilers and use less hot water. In vehicles
or white goods, the in-use phase is crucially important to total
environmental impact and it is easily measured and described and
is directly relevant to consumer choice. The issue of in-use emissions
and how these might be addressed in labelling needs further thought
and research. This doesn't mean that manufacturers of products
whose embedded carbon is relatively small when compared to the
carbon associated with its use should not be encouraged to reduce
the embedded carbon it their products. The scale of the challenge
we face is so great and the consequences potentially so grave
that every effort is needed to decarbonise the economy. None of
the problems with lifecycle assessment diminish the need for carbon
labelling of products and services.
63) For example, embodied carbon measurements
could allow consumers to compare products on the basis of their
'pre-purchase' carbon footprint and send a signal to manufacturers
to reduce carbon in the supply chain. The question is, on what
should consumers be asked to base their decision? When buying
a fridge should they be most concerned about how it is made, how
much energy it consumes when in use, or the impacts of its disposal?
Ideally, consumers should consider all three areas; being realistic,
it is unlikely that consumers would do this and labelling should
be focused on the areas where it will make the biggest difference
to the behaviour of consumers and producers.
64) The Government must identify
areas where lifecycle assessments could be translated into consumer
labels that would encourage the most environmentally benign choice
and that would send the right signal to manufacturers.
65) Carbon labelling could have
a profound effect on manufacturers and their supply chains. We
believe that the Government must do more to support and encourage
carbon labelling, including providing a statutory basis if necessary
as part of a sector-based universal and comprehensive labelling
scheme.
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