Environment

Concern is mounting over the implications of a new carbon footprint standard that is due to be published next month.

A number of senior packaging industry sources have expressed doubts over Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050, a standard being developed by Defra, the Carbon Trust and BSI British Standards that will measure the exact carbon footprint of any given product.

Brand owners will be able to show that carbon footprint, which includes the impact of packaging, on labels. The measurement is designed to inform consumers of the greenhouse gas emissions of a product over its complete lifecycle.

Details of the final specification, which are due to be published in October, are so far unclear and a spokeswoman for Defra refused to be drawn on what it may contain.

However, packaging sources are privately concerned over the standard and the methods early versions have used to calculate a product's carbon footprint.

In particular, the industry believes that the standard would be almost impossible to administer as it would require each product line to be individually measured, including differences where separate batches of a product are packed or produced in more than one factory.

One source said it would be unlikely that PAS 2050, which will be voluntary, would be adopted by retailers due to the "horrendous complexity" of measuring individual products and the likely expense.

"If you have to carbon footprint every line of products coming from every factory in which they are produced, it will be incredibly expensive," the source said.

Some are worried, however, that if one supermarket adopts the labelling system then all the rest will quickly follow suit. One source predicted: "The retailers are going to tell us to do this, whether it’s a legal requirement or not. It just becomes a big headache."

Concerns have also been raised over the methodology of calculating carbon footprints, both in terms of the definition of a product’s lifecycle and claims that the original methodology does not include provision for recycling.

Another source added that the two-year validity of any measurement would also make it too costly to administer.

A spokeswoman for Defra said that the standard would be published in October, as planned, but refused to be drawn on how the new calculations would differ from previous versions of the methodology.

It is understood that technicians have been working on the specification since the end of a consultation on the last version in March.

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