Tesco Gives Up On Carbon Labels

Tesco is abandoning its industry leading effort to place carbon labels on all of its products, according to The Grocer.

The UK-based grocery chain decided that determining the carbon footprint of every Tesco-branded product was too expensive and time consuming. Each product required several months of research, the company said.

Tesco announced the initiative to great fanfare in 2008. CEO Sir Terry Leahy said the effort – in conjunction with the Carbon Trust – was a “revolution in green consumption.”

However, carbon footprinting of products has not taken hold across the market, as expected. Tesco’s climate change director Helen Fleming told The Grocer, the company expected other retailers to follow suit. But that hasn’t happened.

To date, Tesco has labeled about 500 products. The company did not say whether or not the labels will remain.

The Grocer also notes that PepsiCo brand Walkers, is one of the only remaining brands to continue carbon footprinting in Europe. The Co-operative Group, like Tesco, backed away from an initiative started two years ago with Manchester University to footprint its products.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.