http://blog.carbon-360.com/archives/first-ms-now-tesco-goes-green/ Carbon Emissions Trade Discussion and Software Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:19:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://blog.carbon-360.com/archives/first-ms-now-tesco-goes-green/#comment-20761 Carbon Consortium Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:26:22 +0000 http://blog.carbon-360.com/archives/first-ms-now-tesco-goes-green/#comment-20761 By far the most important comment in the Tesco CEO announcement on Friday was the one referring to product labelling - the Carbon Calorie - a universal system! Choose your product CO2 emissions along with your saturated fat levels and sugar intake. The 'cop-out' of course is the sheer difficulty in an accurate assessment - excuse me Mr Cadbury can you let us know how much energy and hence CO2 emissions is used to produce a packet of Cadbury's fingures compared with how much is used to produce your chocolate animal biscuits. Some factories have one gas and electricity meter! Please just how much room will there be for prevarication, argument and method checking. It'll just never happen! What's needed is a generic approach - chocolate biscuits - 25 grams weight - 50 grams of CO2 associate with their production (including downstream sugar, fat etc), 4 grams of CO2 for the packaging, 30 grams of CO2 to get it to the Tesco shop and 30 grams (yes 30 grams!) associated with selling it! So transport, packaging and selling generates more CO2 than the production process itself. Now there's a thought for Tesco and the rest of them. Other products - other emissions liabilites. Wouldn't you just know that home grown meat, veg and dairy products have the lowest CO2 emissions. By far the most important comment in the Tesco CEO announcement on Friday was the one referring to product labelling - the Carbon Calorie - a universal system!
Choose your product CO2 emissions along with your saturated fat levels and sugar intake.
The ‘cop-out’ of course is the sheer difficulty in an accurate assessment - excuse me Mr Cadbury can you let us know how much energy and hence CO2 emissions is used to produce a packet of Cadbury’s fingures compared with how much is used to produce your chocolate animal biscuits.
Some factories have one gas and electricity meter! Please just how much room will there be for prevarication, argument and method checking. It’ll just never happen!
What’s needed is a generic approach - chocolate biscuits - 25 grams weight - 50 grams of CO2 associate with their production (including downstream sugar, fat etc), 4 grams of CO2 for the packaging, 30 grams of CO2 to get it to the Tesco shop and 30 grams (yes 30 grams!) associated with selling it!
So transport, packaging and selling generates more CO2 than the production process itself.
Now there’s a thought for Tesco and the rest of them.
Other products - other emissions liabilites. Wouldn’t you just know that home grown meat, veg and dairy products have the lowest CO2 emissions.

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