Nov 10 2009
Within one year Korean products exported into the UK and around the world could be carrying the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction Label, which demonstrates the manufacturer’s commitment to reducing the product’s carbon footprint. The news follows a groundbreaking partnership agreed today between the UK’s Carbon Trust and the Korean Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI), Korea’s environmental labelling body.
Korea is the 9th largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world – one place behind the UK – and exports $ 91 billion of consumer products around the world each year, with $ 2 billion arriving in the UK. “Low Carbon Green Growth” is a policy of the current government and carbon labelling is seen as an essential tool to drive this new growth. Korea has been running an environmental labelling scheme for the past eight years and one year ago it introduced its own carbon labelling scheme, co-ordinated by KEITI, which to date has carbon labelled products from 24 companies in Korea.
Under a MOU signed today, Korea plans to harmonise its existing scheme with the new international carbon labelling standard ISO14067, which is currently under development and due for completion in 2011. To do so, Korea will use the footprinting tools and methodology pioneered by the UK’s Carbon Trust. As a result, Korean imports into the UK could carry the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction Label within a year. Today’s announcement follows a similar partnership announced in June of this year with Planet Ark that will see the Carbon Reduction Label appearing on Australian products.
Tom Delay, Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust, said:
“This is a major breakthrough. Within two years of launching the concept of carbon labelling our knowledge and experience is now being shared with one of the largest economies in the world. The carbon footprinting of products is a powerful tool to drive carbon out of the supply chain of companies and to provide genuine information to consumers to enable them to make low carbon purchasing decisions. Today’s partnership takes us an important step closer to the mass roll-out of carbon labelling.”
Sang-il Kim, Chief Executive of KEITI, said:
"Cutting greenhouse gases is a global priority and labelling is proving to be an important way to achieve Low Carbon Green Growth in Korea. It is part of our drive to instil green innovation into how we live. Because the export market is so important to us, it is vital that we continue to develop our labelling scheme in a way that is consistent with international standards. Working with the Carbon Trust will enable us both to learn from the success of our schemes. Working together we aim to accelerate the adoption of labelling across the world.”
The Carbon Trust’s scheme to remove carbon emission from the supply chain of products was launched in the UK in 2007 and in less than two years has won the support of over 60 product manufacturers. The label now appears on more than 2,500 UK consumer products, from potato crisps to fruit juice, paving stones to sugar with an annual sales value of more than £2.7billion. Brands that have taken on the system include the leading UK supermarket chain Tesco, Allied Bakeries’ Kingsmill bread and PepsiCo’s Walkers crisps and Quaker oats.