Walkers Crisps is the first firm to put carbon footprint figures on its products, with nine more companies set to follow. How are these figures calculated?
On taking a food item off a supermarket shelf, consumers can instantly read in detail the impact it will have on the body. But what about the effect on the planet?
In April, Walkers Crisps began labelling its cheese and onion bags with a carbon footprint - how many grams of greenhouse gases were emitted in its production - and that has been rolled out to other flavours.
The calculations are done by the Carbon Trust, a private company set up by the government to reduce the UK's carbon footprint.
It spent several months working out that 75g of greenhouse gases are given off in the production of a 33.5g bag of Walkers crisps, taking into account the energy used in:
1. FARMING: Planting the seeds for sunflower oil and potatoes, the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides, ongoing management of the growing process, the diesel used by the tractors to pick the potatoes, and storage of the potatoes in sheds and farms.
2. MANUFACTURE: Potatoes taken from fields to a factory in Leicester, where they are cleaned, chopped up, cooked and bagged.
3. PACKAGING: Sourcing the aluminium and plastic that goes into the packaging, then making and printing the packets.
4. DISTRIBUTION: Taking bags of crisps in lorries to retail stores.
5. DISPOSAL: From kerbside litter bin, into the back of a dustbin lorry and off to landfill.
Nine more companies, among them Coca-Cola and Cadbury, are committed to following Walkers when the methodology used by the Carbon Trust is approved next year.
For more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7002450.stm
What's the Carbon Footprint of a Potato?
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BBC, Sept 19, 2007
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