We're organizing a breakout session at the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) annual conference in DC in January.
This year's theme: Climate Change: Science and Solutions. http://www.ncseonline.org/2008conference/
The breakout will be on Jan 17th and focus on carbon tracking in the supply chain (including projects like Wal-Mart's involvement with the Carbon Disclosure Project) and carbon labelling, such as the Carbon Trust in the UK and Tesco (huge multi-national based in the UK) has started to develop with various researchers at Oxford and other British universities. The labelling effort is an experiment for now, with a few case studies looking at, say, the embedded carbon in a bad of chips including production, packaging, transport, and then commmunicating that information in a simple format to the consumer. Very complex equation, needless to say, and it can only take the product from the seed to the shelf, so to speak, and even then there's a bit of wiggle room. But obviously once the product is bought, the carbon story continues, especially if it has to be refrigerated and disposed. (Recycling of metal, glass, paper will radically be changed when fossil fuel costs skyrocket, which they will sooner or later, since the recycling industry has been in effect subsidized by cheap oil/gas for transport.)In any event, we will likely have some one from the Federal Trade Commission at the breakout since they are looking at carbon tracking issues, and perhaps SEC since they are being pushed by Congress and investors to have corporations fess up to their embedded carbon. The breakout is designed to develop recommendations. Will consumers know what to do with labels that reveal how much embedded carbon is in, say, that flatscreen monitor from China? Perhaps not initially, but it could be a big wake up call to us all since so much of the carbon behind the energy and products and services we buy is totally invisible. My sense is that if the world is going to get serious, carbon tracking, labelling and taxes are inevitable.
Your feedback on this would be appreciated since I'm out of my field of expertise but very intrigued with the potential for using tracking and labelling to help improve and maximize efficiencies and perhaps make a contribution toward stabilization.
Mark --
Mark S. McCaffrey
Science Communications CIRES
Education & Outreach
University of Colorado-
Boulder Campus Box 449
Boulder, CO 80309
303.735.3155
Carbon Tracking and Labelling
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Howdy:
In theory the carbon labeling, like the Carbon Trust and Tesco have been doing in the UK, using a bag of chips as a case study, are really all about story telling....but condensed down to a little symbol that explains the production, packaging, transport and storage story. If we did it on, say, our electric bill, that would be a big wake-up call for many (especially if there were economic incentives to keep the number low....and local. One case study I'd like to explore is the carbon story of my favorite bottle of Australian wine between the time the bottle was made (and whether recycled glass was involved) and the grapes were grown....to the time the bottle is consumed, put into the recycling bin and finally recycled. I suspect the embedded carbon in the bottle will be far more than in the grapes and fermentation....but I don't know. Anyone want to tackle this one?
Mark
One case study I'd like to explore is the carbon story of my favorite bottle of Australian wine between the time the bottle was made (and whether recycled glass was involved) and the grapes were grown....to the time the bottle is consumed, put into the recycling bin and finally recycled. I suspect the embedded carbon in the bottle will be far more than in the grapes and fermentation....but I don't know. Hardy Wines in South Australia has done this exercise for part of the cycle; "from weighbridge to warehouse" - not from the vineyard nor to freight dispatch and retailer to customer. I've attached a powerpoint slide (personally, not the the list for reasons of size).
Nadia
Nadia McLaren
EcoIntegrity
Adelaide, Australia
http://www.ecointegrity.org/
+61 (0)8 83 63 46 74
+61 (0)4 34 33 46 74 (mobile)
+61 (0)8 82 68 87 99 (fax)
[email protected]
skype: nadia.mclaren
Hi All
Great initiative, this carbon-labelling issue is going to become more and more critical as carbon conscious people begin looking for ways to minimise their emissions through their purchasing decisions. We need to be pushing the idea that materials = energy carriers. How to tell the carbon story when we aren't quite sure what will happen in the post-consumer phase is a tricky question indeed. Recycling of metal, glass, paper will radically be changed when fossil fuel costs skyrocket, which they will sooner or later, since the recycling industry has been in effect subsidized by cheap oil/gas for transport. Its also important to acknowledge that although recycling may be facilitated by cheap fossil fuel (as has the vastly greater, one-way linear take-make-waste system of consumption), there are significant C02 emissions saved by recycling, particularly with high embodied energy materials like aluminium and steel. www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au/pdf/reports/recycling_activity_2005-06.pdf According to a report ZWSA commissioned, avoided emissions due to recycling activity in South Australia in 2005-06 was 1.24 million tonnes co2-e, or equivalent to 20% of emissions from the State's transport sector! South Australia introduced container deposit legislation in 1975 (5c refund per beverage container), so we have high levels of aluminium can recovery.
Cheers,
Sharon Ede
Research/Project Officer
Zero Waste SA