The first wave of food and drink companies to join the government’s plans for a universal greenhouse gas (GHG) footprinting system will start tests next month, in what Defra is calling a “key milestone” in the battle again climate change.
The ‘LED4Food’ programme, spearheaded by climate change experts Wrap, will introduce common methodology to allow various rival carbon footprinting systems used by food and drink companies to work in harmony.
Wrap told The Grocer it expects to provide preliminary findings to ministers in March, with full recommendations by this time next year. But it stressed it would be down to the government to decide the degree to which the reporting would lead to new regulations demanding companies to report on the data.
Whilst the tests do not themselves involve eco-labelling, many believe they will provide the conditions for a new government-backed eco label backed by regulation from Westminster to help verify food companies’ green claims.
Environmental mission milestone
The government told The Grocer the move was a “key milestone” in its mission to ensure a consistent and science-led approach to environmental impact measurement.
“The primary aim of this testing is to provide comparability between the data being used by companies,” said Wrap food system transformation specialist Matthew Anderson-Barker.
“We are curently reaching out to food and drink businesses and the dozens of businesses and technology platforms that currently undertake product footprints for those companies to get them to take part.
“We are really pushing hard on consultancies and tech companies because they are the ones doing the footprinting.
“It will be a policy decision for Defra the extent to which they endorse this, and whether it could sit behind an eco-labelling system or whether they bring in regulation requiring its use in different cases.”
Mandatory regulations
Senior sources told The Grocer they believed regulation to back up the system was “vital” if it was to succeed.
“I don’t think it can work without mandatory requirements at a product level,” said one source. “There may always be exceptions for size but, strangely, some SMEs are better set up for GHG reporting than the larger retailers and manufacturers.
“If this is done it will allow data to flow through the system, but the challenge of course is that existing commercial relationships may get in the way.”
Last year The Grocer revealed the Food Data Transparency Partnership had scrapped plans to introduce a mandatory approach to eco-labelling for the food and drink industry, in one of many climbdowns under the previous government.
A report claimed there was “limited” evidence such labels had an impact on consumer behaviour, or that they encouraged food and drink companies to reduce their carbon footprint.
However, sources told The Grocer there had been a “renewed enthusiasm” towards tackling the challenge of confusing environmental data and green claims since Labour came into power.
There have been fears supermarkets could use footprinting data to increase their power over suppliers.
But the source told The Grocer: “I think rather than a chance to bully suppliers, supermarkets will want to see their supply chains report on GHG for the good of their brand and reputation.”
Defra insisted there were no immediate plans to mandate the methodology, and stessed any future standardisation would need to have timelines for adoption and guidance on how to respect previous efforts by different sectors.
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