Rise Up, Eco-Labels!
The European Commission’s Action Plan
The United Nation’s intergovernmental panel on climate change has warned that at present, the food industry contributes up to 37% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Without intervention, emissions are likely to increase by another 30% in 2050 due to the increasing demands from population growth.
As a result, the European Commission considers legislation under its Farm to Fork strategy for animal welfare, nutrition, sustainability, and country of origin labelling, which is to be published in 2024. With its new food labelling strategy, the European Union (EU) hopes to empower consumers to make sustainable food choices.
During a recent European Food Forum event, PepsiCo voiced its support for the EU-wide harmonisation of the climate labelling scheme. Deriving from its consumer base, Pepsi’s Director of Environmental Policy, Gloria Gabellini, expressed that “consumers are increasingly interested in knowing more about the environmental footprint of food and beverage products in particular.”
The EU-wide methodology focuses on two aspects: to assist consumers in their purchasing choices and to use labelling as a driver to incentivise food companies to reformulate their products. Furthermore, food producers often adopt regenerative agricultural practices. Such as reducing water usage and chemical fertilisers as two most commonly used methods.
Foundation Earth’s Take on Building a Sustainable Food Industry
Foundation Earth, a non-profit devised by the late Northern Irish food entrepreneur, David Flynn, is set to launch a pilot scheme of A-G letter and traffic light-style environmental scores on products in September 2021. It acts as a medium for companies to continue delivering the environmental impacts of food and beverage to consumers.
The scheme is backed by food giants and retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Co-Op, and Sainsbury’s. Plant-based brands like The Meatless Farm Co and Mighty Pea also support the labelling system, being some of the firsts to attach clear and credible front-of-pack scores to their food packages.
The overall grading of products is determined by four measuring criteria. Carbon emission is weighted at 49% of the overall grade. Water usage, the impact of losses on biodiversity, and water pollution account for 17% each. Furthermore, framing, processing, packaging and transportation cover the entirety of the upstream value chain for food.
To meet the agenda of rolling out an eco-labelling scheme across the whole of Europe in 2022, this traffic light scoring scheme developed by advisory company Mondra will run in parallel with a nine-month research and development programme introduced by Nestle. Combining both the Mondra method and a measuring method developed by an EIT-funded consortium of Belgium’s Leuven University and Spanish research agency AZTI. By the time the system expands throughout the continent, it would hopefully be on an optimal and fully automated level.
On the bigger picture, the studies shall inform discussions in Europe for a harmonized environmental scoring system. In return, it resolves the longstanding difficulties of standardisation posed by the competing existence of hundreds of eco-labels in Europe, ranging from RSPO, Fairtrade, to the EU Ecolabel.
Implications for the Future
“The development of a more transparent, sustainable global food supply system is of huge importance to the health of our planet and health of all citizens. We need a system based on the core principles of integrity.” Professor Chris Elliott OBE, the UK’s leading food scientist and chair of the Foundation Earth's scientific advisory committee said.
After all, the active promotion of eco-labelling is to incentivise "more sustainable buying choices from consumers, and more environmentally friendly innovation from food producers, who will be determined to secure a better score." - Foundation Earth
By Ottilie Cheung