{"id":8921,"date":"2012-04-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/2012\/04\/30\/the-carbon-footprint-of-products-a-powerful-tool-to-support-existing-market-dynamics-in-favour-of-a-low-carbon-economy\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T11:46:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T09:46:30","slug":"the-carbon-footprint-of-products-a-powerful-tool-to-support-existing-market-dynamics-in-favour-of-a-low-carbon-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/the-carbon-footprint-of-products-a-powerful-tool-to-support-existing-market-dynamics-in-favour-of-a-low-carbon-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Carbon Footprint of Products: a powerful tool to support existing market dynamics in favour of a low carbon economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A top-down approach is not enough<\/strong><\/p>\n

Climate change seems to be a problem of eyesight\u00a0defect. On the one side scientists may be considered\u00a0\u201cfar-sighted\u201d, as they concentrate on what it will probably\u00a0happen far from now, in the next decades or,\u00a0more likely, at the end of the century. That will happen\u00a0when it is virtually certain that nobody among who is\u00a0writing or reading this article will have the opportunity\u00a0to experience the correctness of any climate model\u00a0projection.<\/p>\n

On the other side, politicians are strongly affected by\u00a0myopia, considering that they generally focus their attention\u00a0on what it may happen during the few years of\u00a0their mandate or, in the worst case, on the results of\u00a0daily polls.<\/p>\n

Out of focus in between, there is the destiny of billions\u00a0of people, partially responsible of global warming\u00a0with their behaviour as well as affected by the consequences\u00a0of the ongoing changes.
\nIn 2009, during the preparation of COP15, the former\u00a0UNFCCC Executive Director, Mr. Yvo de Boer, repeated\u00a0as a mantra that the solution for the climate crisis\u00a0had to be found right there in Copenhagen because\u00a0\u201cthere is not a Plan B\u201d. Nonetheless, the call for a deeper\u00a0commitment of the Parties did not work and the\u00a0plan A failed without excuses.
\nToday, the three-year track of the Durban Platform (which\u00a0was agreed last year) roughly \u00a0 reproduces the aim of the\u00a0two-year Bali Road Map (2007) and it seems very similar\u00a0to the kind of Plan B mentioned by Mr. Yvo de Boer.
\nThe hope is to achieve plan B: that would be enough\u00a0to stop the most dangerous consequences of climate\u00a0change by maintaining the increase in temperatures\u00a0below 2\u00b0 C. Observing the negotiation process of the\u00a0latest years, it is easier to find difficulties rather than\u00a0a substantive will to move together towards a global,\u00a0ambitious, effective and comprehensive international\u00a0agreement .
\nIn the meanwhile, CO2 emissions are continuously registering\u00a0new records, year after year (30.6 billion of\u00a0tons in 2010, 31.6 in 2011) such as its concentration in\u00a0the atmosphere, today close to the symbolic threshold\u00a0of 400 ppm. The discussion about the Arctic Pole is now\u00a0more oriented to who has the right and how to use its\u00a0more easily achievable natural resources, rather than\u00a0if the ice surface reduction should worry the planet. In\u00a0the media, the extreme weather events are nowadays
\nbecoming almost a normal and accepted condition.<\/p>\n

In this framework, there is no doubt that an international\u00a0agreement is fundamental but not enough to solve\u00a0climate change.<\/p>\n

The market is already moving<\/strong>
\nIt is not possible to apply an effective solution to climate\u00a0change without a deep and extensive involvement of\u00a0people in their double role of citizens and consumers.
\nThe first kind of involvement is necessary to create the\u00a0fundamental bottom-up pressure needed to foster any\u00a0government towards an ambitious global deal.
\nConsumers are equally important to facilitate the drastic\u00a0change in the market dynamics in order to realize\u00a0the revolution expected in the next years.
\nSomething has already started to change in the last decade.
\nThe Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) operating\u00a0from 2005 in the EU, together with the Clean Development\u00a0Mechanism (CDM) and the Joint Implementation\u00a0(JI) under the UNFCCC umbrella, introduced the CO2\u00a0as a new economic value10. At the beginning of May,\u00a0with almost unanimity, an ETS was approved also in\u00a0South Korea: in this way the country exceeded the tactical\u00a0moment existing in Asia, where Japan and China\u00a0are slowly moving forward on this topics, but avoiding
\nto do the first step in order to control what has been\u00a0done by the respective big economical competitors.
\nThe voluntary movement of China in this area is however\u00a0interesting, taking into account that it is not part of\u00a0the group of countries formally committed under the\u00a0Kyoto Protocol (KP) with greenhouse gas (GHG) targets\u00a0reduction. In fact, a pilot ETS should be implemented in
\nsix provinces of China by 2013 as well as at the national\u00a0level by 2015. According to Bryony Worthington and\u00a0Terry Townshend, the reasons why China is moving\u00a0towards ETS are threefold: to maintain social cohesion\u00a0through a sustainable growth; since command and control\u00a0policies applied to date do not stimulate innovation\u00a0nor encourage enterprises; and, finally, because after
\nthe 2011 Durban Conference, China knows that it is expected\u00a0to take part in an international agreement to cut\u00a0global emissions from 2020.
\nIn Australia the situation is more complicated: the\u00a0attempt to introduce ETS was one of the main reasons\u00a0which pushed Kevin Rudd to resign in favour of the party\u2019s colleague Julia Gillard. She moved straight towards\u00a0the ETS, despite the strong opposition of the important\u00a0national lobby of the coal industry15. The aim is to introduce\u00a0ETS after 3 or 5 years from the launch of the\u00a0carbon tax16. The law has been approved in November\u00a02011 and a new tax will be on place from July 2012 with\u00a0a value of $23 (almost \u20ac19) per ton of CO2. An ETS is\u00a0already on place in New Zealand too, from July 2010.<\/p>\n

The carbon tax has also been discussed for quite a\u00a0long time in the EU. France renounced to its carbon\u00a0tax when the project was already announced because\u00a0the government was worried that competitiveness\u00a0might possibly sink. Ireland introduced a carbon tax\u00a0of 4c a litre in 2010. Italy is ready to introduce a carbon\u00a0tax of a not yet defined value, included between\u00a04c and 24 c.
\nFor many countries (i.e., Norway, Australia, New Zealand)\u00a0the availability to commit for more ambitious\u00a0targets in the UNFCCC context is subject to the availability\u00a0of a market-based mechanism.\u00a0The Norwegian climate policy is based on the principle\u00a0to put a price on emissions, through economywide\u00a0measures. From 2013, about 80% of emissions\u00a0in Norway will be covered by economic instruments\u00a0(CO2 taxes or emissions trading).
\nThe same applies to the Switzerland, which approved\u00a0a legislation in December 2011, for the 2013-2020 period,\u00a0setting several instruments, such as a CO2 levy on\u00a0fuels used for energy and an ETS for large industries.
\nA new market-based mechanism has been agreed in\u00a0the UNFCCC context, although modalities and procedures\u00a0are yet to be elaborated and a decision is expected\u00a0by the end of 2012.
\nThe existing and evolving ETS and carbon tax at the\u00a0international level are confirming the prospect of a\u00a0growing and extensive CO2 price, which gives extra\u00a0value to the investments in energy efficiency and facilitates\u00a0the introduction of low carbon technologies\u00a0and solutions.<\/p>\n

The actual development of the Carbon Footprint\u00a0<\/strong>of Products<\/strong>
\nA further and powerful market mechanism is growing\u00a0very fast with regard to products at the international\u00a0level, acting on the important producer-consumer relationship.<\/p>\n

The crucial importance of the Carbon Footprint of\u00a0products (CFP) is found in the capacity to condense\u00a0in a single number the GHG emissions arising from\u00a0the entire life cycle of a product. Through this tool\u00a0the producers may have a double set of advantages:\u00a0internally, they achieve a detailed description of the\u00a0amount of GHG emitted in the product life cycle,\u00a0mainly linked to its energy content, besides knowing\u00a0in which phases this happens. The \u201cexternal\u201d advantages
\nare probably even more attractive, based on\u00a0the possibility to use the CFP as the preferred way
\nto communicate the product\u2019s climate characteristics\u00a0to clients.
\nThis is exactly what consumers are increasingly looking\u00a0for at the international level, with the awareness\u00a0that their purchase choices have a central role in the\u00a0market dynamics in order to address the transition\u00a0to a low-carbon economy. The idea that, in the near\u00a0future, there will be a great spread out of information\u00a0about the CFP, also has a strong potential to increase\u00a0the consumers\u2019 awareness related to choices and behaviours\u00a0in daily life.
\nIn June 2012 more than 27.000 products have obtained\u00a0the CFP Carbon Trust certification in 21 countries.\u00a0Different national schemes for CFP have been created\u00a0in several countries, such as UK, Japan, Sweden,\u00a0Korea and Thailand, and it is expected that several\u00a0more will be developed in the next few years.
\nAlso in Italy the situation on this topic is changing\u00a0very quickly and the Minister of the Environment,
\nMr. Corrado Clini, is showing particular attention to\u00a0the CFP as may be understood by the creation of a\u00a0pilot project involving 22 different products of large\u00a0use (Table 1). It is not excluded that the forthcoming \u00a0months may lead to the creation of a National scheme\u00a0of CFP.
\nAll these examples of strong attention already achieved\u00a0in so many countries may be explained only taking\u00a0into account the combination of opportunities for producers and consumers and the consequent possibility\u00a0to create new market dynamics among these\u00a0actors. Nevertheless, a single international standard\u00a0reference is still missing.<\/p>\n

An international standard by summer 2013<\/strong>
\nThe first reference document on CFP has been the\u00a0PAS 2050, published in 2008 by BSI, the British Standardization\u00a0Institute. Technically speaking this is not a\u00a0standard but a Public Available Specification. The difference\u00a0between the two levels of documents is mainly\u00a0related to the involvement of stakeholders in the development\u00a0process and the time needed to complete and
\npublish them. Both kinds of documents may introduce\u00a0specifications and requirements and, probably for this\u00a0reason, now everyone calls the PAS 2050 a CFP \u201cstandard\u201d.\u00a0The choice to develop a PAS has been related to the\u00a0awareness of an already existing market request for\u00a0this kind of tool. Therefore, the \u201ctime\u201d factor has been\u00a0considered crucial for the success of the project and,\u00a0as a matter of fact, the PAS 2050 has been produced\u00a0only in one year. Carbon Trust \u2013 a private company\u00a0created in 2001 by the UK government to foster lowcarbon\u00a0technologies and solutions \u2013 and DEFRA \u2013 the\u00a0UK Environmental Agency \u2013 promoted the document.\u00a0The revision published in 2011 has been sponsored\u00a0by different actors, all part of the UK national departments:\u00a0DECC (Department for Environment and Climate\u00a0Change) and BIS (Department for Business, Innovation\u00a0and Skills), together with DEFRA. This is a\u00a0clear evidence of the UK Government\u2019s attention to the\u00a0market opportunity for the CFP.\u00a0Also in 2011 the PAS 2050 revision has been published\u00a0and another CFP reference document has been issued\u00a0by WRI (World Resources Institute) and WBCSD (World\u00a0Business Council for Sustainable Development). The\u00a0publishing of both documents has been delayed with\u00a0regard to the original time schedule due to the focus\u00a0that the two processes reserved to the ongoing decision\u00a0on ISO 14067. The high level of attention to this\u00a0standard is justified by the awareness that this will\u00a0become the main standard reference, once published.<\/p>\n

However, the development path towards the ISO standard\u00a0is not so easy. In the past there have been more\u00a0stops to its mandatory development steps (WD, CD,\u00a0DIS and FDIS), documented by the three revisions of\u00a0the Working Draft and the three revisions of the Committee\u00a0Draft. Nowadays, the balloting to move from DIS\u00a0to FDIS failed with a 33% of negative vote against the\u00a0maximum accepted threshold of 25% (Table 2) forcing\u00a0to a second DIS 2 stage.<\/p>\n

A tool facilitating low-carbon economy rather\u00a0<\/strong>than building up trade barriers<\/strong>
\nWhy such an important and expected standard is finding\u00a0all these difficulties in its development, being forced\u00a0to repeat time after time the same development\u00a0steps (WD and CD) and then failing the ballot from\u00a0DIS to FDIS? Probably there exist some internal causes\u00a0in ISO because this process has not always been managed\u00a0in an effective way. However, the main reasons\u00a0are related to the number and importance of different\u00a0interests, rather than lobbies, acting around this topic.
\nIt is normal to expect that any powerful tool may generate\u00a0big opportunities as well as big risks. There is\u00a0no doubt that ISO 14067 will play a very powerful role\u00a0in the international market and the level of pressure\u00a0influencing the Standard\u2019s text and its requirements\u00a0becomes evident.
\nThere are, for example, different expectations on ISO\u00a014067 among fossil and palm oil companies, concrete\u00a0and wood industries, or the view of the consumers\u00a0and the industrial associations. Yet, probably one of the\u00a0most crucial factors that will decide the future success\u00a0of the Standard is its potential role in the market relation\u00a0between developed and developing countries.
\nFor a deeper understanding of this area of interest it\u00a0might be useful to describe a couple of examples.<\/p>\n

The first one is already 5 year old. In 2007 Tesco, the\u00a0big UK retail company, decided to evaluate the CFP of\u00a0a set of products. Among them, there were flowers produced\u00a0in Kenya. The most important contribution of the\u00a0CFP on these flowers was connected with the aircraft\u00a0transportation. For this reason, Tesco decided to halve\u00a0the amount of flowers supplied by Kenya. A broad\u00a0discussion followed these decisions in the UK, due to\u00a0another kind of considerations, such as the role of agriculture
\nfor a sustainable development path in Kenya\u00a0or technical considerations about the environmental
\nimpact evaluation during the cold season, when the flowers\u00a0coming from the Netherlands have a CFP 5 times\u00a0as bigger as the African one, due to the additional\u00a0energy input for their cultivation in greenhouses.\u00a0Anyhow, the Kenya Flower Council called for a risk of\u00a0creation of trade barriers.
\nProbably this situation forced the developing countries\u00a0to ask and obtain the introduction of the requirement\u00a0to report separately the aircraft emissions in the\u00a0current version of the ISO 14067, despite the complete\u00a0absence of technical reasons to treat this emission differently\u00a0than the ones arising from sail and road transportation.\u00a0The other crucial example happened before the Oslo
\nmeeting in June 2011, when a decision had to be taken\u00a0on the possible upgrade of the ISO 14067 CD2 to the\u00a0DIS level.
\nIn the official balloting before the meeting, Egypt voted\u00a0to move the document from CD to DIS. After that,\u00a0the India Foreign Minister wrote a letter to the Egyptian\u00a0Foreign Minister to claim for the positive vote of\u00a0the Mediterranean country. It is really unusual, almost\u00a0surely the first time in the environmental sector, that\u00a0such a high level politician takes part directly in an ISO\u00a0technical process.<\/p>\n

As a consequence, Egypt expressed a negative vote in\u00a0the following ballot in June 2012 (to decide if moving\u00a0the DIS to FDIS), although it is possible that additional\u00a0causes contributed to this change of position. Informal\u00a0confirmation of a broader lobby activity from India pushed\u00a0other countries to decide for a negative vote. For\u00a0example, Armenia expressed, with its negative vote,\u00a0full support to the Indian position and, on the \u201csecondary\u00a0data\u201d item, India and other three countries expressed
\nexactly the same comment. The large majority\u00a0of negative votes from other countries were justified\u00a0by the concern that ISO 14067 would have created a\u00a0new kind of trade barrier (Table 3).
\nTo give an answer to this concern, in the same month,\u00a0at the Bangkok meeting, a specific clause was been\u00a0proposed (4. Application) in the ISO\/DIS2 14067, improving\u00a0the previous Oslo\u2019s version and specifying\u00a0that the standard shall not be adopted or applied in a\u00a0manner that results in barriers to trade that contradict\u00a0WTO requirements, aiming at solving the developing\u00a0countries\u2019 opposition.<\/p>\n

Carbon will play an important role in future\u00a0<\/strong>markets<\/strong>
\nThe CFP is, therefore, just in the middle between the\u00a0risk to facilitate the creation of an unattended trade\u00a0barrier and the strong need to use the market potentiality\u00a0to build up the needed pressure from the bottom,\u00a0in order to complement (or substitute, in the worst\u00a0case) the necessary international top-down new political\u00a0deals.
\nAs a matter of fact, bottom-up and top-down approaches\u00a0have a complementary role and the hurdle of\u00a0politically achieving an international deal may force\u00a0some countries to ask for the introduction of different\u00a0kinds of market tools. In this respect, the choice of Mr.\u00a0A. Montebourg, the France Minister of Industrial Renewal,\u00a0to introduce a carbon tax on goods imported\u00a0from outside Europe should be understood. This was\u00a0thought in order to balance the European situation\u00a0with other developed countries, whereas the absence\u00a0of any commitment on GHG reduction may generate a different structure of costs for goods\u2019 production hence\u00a0creating a clear market distortion.<\/p>\n

The possibility to create trade barriers is therefore deeply\u00a0connected with the existence of strong, comprehensive\u00a0and effective international agreements.\u00a0Within this framework, the possible role of CFP as trade\u00a0barrier should be considered more connected with\u00a0external factors and political choices rather than with\u00a0technical characteristics, such as requirements introduced\u00a0in an ISO standard.
\nGlobal and local food<\/strong>
\nThe CFP may play an important role in the food sector\u00a0to facilitate the development of local markets as possible\u00a0alternative of the globalization. This may generate\u00a0large discussions on the implication of this case in\u00a0terms of lack of economic opportunities, but it is fundamental\u00a0to always keep in mind the dimension of the\u00a0challenge that climate change is asking to face.\u00a0This implies that strong changes in consumer behaviours\u00a0are not more deferrable. Just last year, on the\u00a0occasion of the ISO meeting in Toronto to develop the\u00a0ISO 14067, in a restaurant a maitre served me a bottle\u00a0of water produced less than 100 km from my house in\u00a0Italy. And this happened in a country that does not have\u00a0any problem of water availability. How is it possible to\u00a0imagine 50% of global GHG reduction by 2050 (compared\u00a0with 1990) without changing this kind of market\u00a0pattern? This personal experience could be probably\u00a0replicated for large part of the food sector, where the\u00a0main contribution of foods and beverages to CFP may\u00a0be due to their long transportation distances.
\nIn order to reduce the importance of this kind of GHG\u00a0global emissions and to promote local agriculture,\u00a0several movements promoting the \u201c0 km products\u201d\u00a0approach in the food sector were initiated in the last\u00a0years. In this context, the CFP could play an important\u00a0role to support with objectivity this evolution that started\u00a0to be part of the market dynamics before the idea\u00a0of CFP was launched.<\/p>\n

A radical change from the globalization to the localization\u00a0approaches may seem today unlikely considering\u00a0the actual market dynamics. Reality is also expected\u00a0to change radically in the next years to build up an\u00a0effective answer to the anthropogenic global warming,\u00a0and it is very likely that what today seems impossible\u00a0in few years may become simply the reality.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong>
\nThe high level of attention paid to the development of\u00a0the CFP standard ISO 14067 shows the important role\u00a0this document will have at the international level when\u00a0published. Some developing countries are worried that\u00a0the new standard may create undesired trade barriers\u00a0but this seems to be related more to the international\u00a0political negotiation than to the content of a technical\u00a0standard. The ISO 14067 development process has\u00a0been largely delayed, as evidence of the large level\u00a0of existing interests, but it does not seem possible it\u00a0will fail considering that other CFP\u00a0standards are already present in the\u00a0market. The CFP will probably play\u00a0a key role, particularly in the food\u00a0sector, where it may objectively\u00a0support the already existing\u00a0dynamics in favour\u00a0of the local agriculture\u00a0production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A top-down approach is not enough Climate change seems to be a problem of eyesight\u00a0defect. On the one side scientists may be considered\u00a0\u201cfar-sighted\u201d, as they concentrate on what it will probably\u00a0happen far from now, in the next decades or,\u00a0more likely, at the end of the century. That will happen\u00a0when it is virtually certain that nobody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11815,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8921\/revisions\/11815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aequilibria.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}