A guide to the Carbon Reduction Label

The Carbon Reduction Label is an easily recognisable on-pack label that you can use to check whether the products you are buying are committed to reducing their carbon emissions. Brands that want to ‘wear’ the Label are required to calculate the exact footprint of the product in question to the PAS 2050 standard.  This standard was developed in 2007 by the Carbon Trust in partnership with the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and BSI British Standards. It is now being used around the world by hundreds of companies to calculate their product carbon footprints.

When calculating a carbon footprint, every stage in the product's lifecycle must be taken into account including the raw materials and packaging needed to produce it, through to manufacture, transportation, sale to the end user, use and disposal.  Once the carbon footprint of the product has been measured and certified, the brand then has to commit to reducing the product’s emissions. Every two years, the product must be reassessed and a reduction has to have been achieved and independently certified – or the Label is removed.