Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-126)
DR ALAN
KNIGHT AND
MS SUE
DIBB
12 DECEMBER 2007
Q120 Mark Pritchard: Carbon labelling
you touched on earlier as a carbon label sceptic, perhaps, saying
it only plays a part. I just wondered whether you could elaborate
a little more on your concerns, which I think I probably agree
with actually.
Dr Knight: There are several and
the first one is in rejecting a consumer-facing carbon label I
am not rejecting the concept of carbon footprinting. I think the
concept of anybody in the supply chain knowing where the carbon
peak is, so we know with dairy products it is to do with what
happens in the fields and with things like coke and beer, where
I have had some exposure, it is the making of a bottle or a can.
That is really useful management information for you to make a
decision about where you reduce your carbon footprint. But giving
consumers a number worries me and it worries me on several levels.
The first one is that the methodology is still not thought through
enough. For example, the label out there at the moment stops when
the product arrives on the retailer's shelf, which is not its
true embedded carbon footprint. So if you look at a potato, the
carbon footprint is when you actually put it in the oven. Also,
if you put ten potatoes in an oven the carbon footprint per potato
is going to be lower than if you put one potato in the oven, and
you can do different things with that potato. So the carbon footprint
varies dramatically on how you process it. Another example which
is actually going to happen in the marketplace next year is that
one of the leading UK peat producers has put a carbon label on
it. He came to me, because I do some advisory work for Wyevale
Garden Centres, very proud that they are going to be the first
garden media producers to have a carbon label on their products.
I said, "How is it calculated?" It is peat from the
ground up to the delivery to the garden centres. When you put
peat in a pot or in your garden it starts to decay because peat
is a fossil fuel. It is the first stage of coal. The carbon footprint
of the decay of peat, which is inevitable once you have opened
the bag, is four times higher than the distribution carbon footprint.
So the number—and it is one of these official carbon labels—is
four times inaccurate, so it is actually giving the consumer the
wrong information. With something as straightforward as a patio
heater, that carbon label would be the manufacturing and delivery
of that patio heater to B&Q, not the use, and we all know
the story about how bad patio heaters are once you turn them on.
So there is that issue. Then also I think there is the issue of
double, treble, quadruple accounting, so the carbon footprint
of a washing machine, the carbon footprint of clothes, the carbon
footprint of the detergent are all going on, so actually you are
giving customers very confusing information. Also, the other thing
is that it is retailers imposing on the customer to make the choice,
"We expect you to buy this bag of crisps because it is 75
as opposed to our competitor's which is 86." All the research
we have done in the SDC shows that actually that sort of information
should be used by the retailer to edit out unsustainable choices.
It is almost this sort of notion that "We exist to give customers
information and they then make the choice," as opposed to,
"We should be making those choices on behalf of our customers."
Q121 Mark Pritchard: On the carbon
footprint point—and I agree with you on that—do you
agree with me that we should have clearer labelling on where a
particular product is sourced rather than where it is packaged?
At the moment there is definitely a sleight of hand on some products
where people say they think they are buying British when in fact
it was just packaged when it arrived in port.
Dr Knight: I agree with where
you are coming from. I think there might need to be more thought
on what we actually mean by where it is sourced versus where it
is packaged because it is complicated. Products go backwards and
forwards. I remember a garden bench at B&Q made from timber
grown in Brazil, which was manufactured in China and finally packed
in the UK. I think there are some really practical issues about
what we actually mean by where a product is sourced versus where
it is actually made.
Q122 Mark Pritchard: But the traceability
of the carbon footprint would not be beyond the wit of people
in Defra?
Dr Knight: No, I think we need
to think through a bit more than that, because the distance of
transport is not actually directly related to its carbon footprint.
It is the method of transport and how efficient that transport
is. Air freighting ten garden benches is very, very high carbon
intensive; putting 600 in one container and putting them on a
slow-moving ship would have a lower carbon footprint even if the
actual distance was a lot higher.
Q123 Mark Pritchard: But irrespective
of whether it is on a ship or on a plane and whether the ship
or the plane goes 1,000 or 3,000 miles, there is a carbon footprint
which could be traced?
Dr Knight: Yes, but if your label
said that this product comes from France and this one comes from
China, the implication is that the Chinese footprint would have
a higher carbon footprint than the French garden bench.
Q124 Mark Pritchard: No, I am talking
about the cumulative total carbon footprint so that the consumer
knows.
Dr Knight: The answer is still
the same. The Chinese product might actually have a much lower
carbon footprint and also the manufacturing process might be a
lot better, because what you are saying in that statement is that
the highest carbon footprint is always the transport of the product,
and in many cases it is not.
Q125 Mark Pritchard: No, I am saying
that there should be a total carbon footprint statement, if you
like, and transport will be part of that by definition, whether
it be small, large, by air or by sea.
Dr Knight: I am sort of agreeing
with you, I just think the execution needs a bit more finessing
because the confusion is if I am in a shop, or I am the beer buyer
for Tesco, so what? Is this good or is this bad? All the labels
which have worked in the marketplace, be it the graded energy
on fridges where red and orange is clearly bad and you go up the
grading scale and green and yellow is clearly better. FSC is clearly
good because it is a pass/fail criteria. The problem with saying
China and a carbon footprint of X is that I do not know if that
is good or bad.
Q126 Chairman: That has been very
enlightening in terms of the Sub-Committee and carbon labelling
and it is clearly a complex issue and it is how we balance all
of these things.
Dr Knight: It is, yes.
Chairman: Can I thank you for coming
along. It has been a useful start to our afternoon session. Thank
you very much indeed.
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