Yesterday the world’s largest retailer announced a plan to develop a universal sustainability product index.
“Customers want products that are more efficient, that last longer and perform better,” Wal-Mart President and CEO Mike Duke said in a meeting with 1,500 of its supplies, associates and sustainability leaders at its home office outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. “And increasingly they want information about the entire lifecycle of a product so they can feel good about buying it. They want to know that the materials in the product are safe, that it was made well and that it was produced in a responsible way."
Consumers also want to be able to access such information conveniently, which is why the final step of Wal-Mart’s plan is to produce a simple rating tool such as a numeric score or color code. The tool will allow consumers to compare the environmental and social sustainability of competing products simply by glancing at their product labels, similar to the way they are currently able to compare the healthiness of food products against each other using nutritional labels.
Sustainability product labels would reflect how environmentally and socially sustainable products are over the course of their life cycles based on how close they come to meeting four broad goals:
- Reducing energy cost and greenhouse gas emissions
- Reducing waste
- Producing high quality,responsibly sourced raw materials
- Ensuring responsible and ethical production
In October, Lightning Labels predicted that carbon footprint labeling would become standard fare on product labels within the decade, if not sooner, after UK supermarket giant Tesco launched a major trial of carbon footprint labeling on some of its private label brands in cooperation with the Carbon Trust. With major retailers Tesco and Wal-Mart leading the way on both sides of the pond now, it appears that consumers can expect to see carbon footprint labeling on most product labels sooner rather than later.
Related Resources
Wal-Mart Sustainability Meeting Webcast
Carbon Footprint Labeling is Coming
Carbon Footprint Labeling
With major retailers Tesco and Wal-Mart leading the way on both sides of the pond now, it appears that consumers can expect to see carbon footprint labeling on most product labels sooner rather than later.