Ever pick something up off the grocery store shelf and balk at the nutrition label before putting it back and opting for something healthier? This is what Unilever hopes to achieve with its new carbon labels, information on each product they sell about the carbon impact of that good.
To create their new carbon footprint labels, the company will demand a “carbon invoice” from its suppliers and develop partnerships with other businesses and organizations to standardize data collection, sharing, and communication.
The volume of data it takes to create carbon impact reports for all Unilever products is daunting, but the company’s tight control over its large supply chain makes the information available and demanding it feasible.
Tesco, the UK based supermarket chain attempted to initiate a similar system 10 years with minimal success, but Unilever’s expansive supply and distribution chain, combined with heightened customer awareness of climate issues, makes the program look promising this time around.
Hopefully, counting your product’s carbon impact will soon be as easy as counting calories in packaged foods. Calling attention to the impact of products both encourages customers to rethink their buying habits and opt for greener choices and urges producers to create their products and source ingredients in a more environmentally-friendly manner.
