Manufacturing and Value Chains

Calories or carbon? Better labelling helps consumers make more climate-conscious choices

Better labelling enables consumers to make an informed choice.

Better labelling enables consumers to make an informed choice. Image: Hydro Norsk

Hanne Simensen
Executive Vice-President, Aluminium Metal, Hydro
This article is part of: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
  • Every consumer faces daily dilemmas over their product purchases, looking to labels to make informed choices about sustainability and other matters.
  • Ideally consumers would be able to make similar considerations when buying any items we need for our daily routines, including electric vehicles.
  • We need to introduce more incentives to purchase products with a lower footprint or higher recyclability to accelerate the green transition.

Like all consumers, I frequently face trivial dilemmas. Like the other day, standing next to the shelf in my local food store, trying to make a choice from an array of cereal boxes. Lower-priced products at the bottom, more expensive options at eye height, and then this box on the top shelf that looks particularly tempting. I realize this is the best money can buy, yet I instinctively reach out for something cheaper. This time, however, I take a closer look at the labels on the back of the boxes.

Have you read?

It appears the high-end product costs more for a reason. Less additives, preservatives and artificial ingredients could probably do me some good. It’s produced locally too, and not shipped halfway across the globe. The appealing packaging is both recycled and fully recyclable. So yes, the labelling enables me to make an informed choice.

Ideally, we should be able to make the same considerations whenever we buy the other things we need for our daily routines. Even if my car doesn’t have a exhaust pipe and took me to the store without emitting anything at all, what exact footprint did it leave on the planet before I picked it up at the dealership? My new electric pride and joy really has done only half the job if the materials used to make it carry a larger footprint than the fossil fuel alternatives.

All production comes with a footprint

Did you know that about one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions come from material production? All materials come with a set of challenges. In the case of aluminium, which makes up about one third of my electric car, the main challenge lies in the energy-intensive nature of the production processes.

In addition, harvesting a natural resource like bauxite, the raw material for aluminium, always comes with a footprint. The aluminium value chain has an impact on the climate, ecosystems and communities.​

At the same time, aluminium has unique properties making it an important enabler for the green transition, which is why demand is expected to grow in line with the urgent need to stop global warming and mitigate climate change. This is the paradox that the industry must address before aluminium can step fully into the role as a more sustainable material for the future.

At Norsk Hydro, we are exploring ways to conduct more sustainable mining operations with an uncompromising approach to responsible tailings management, reforestation, wildlife preservation and the empowering of local communities. We are working to cut emissions throughout the value chain, even if it means challenging the basic principles of aluminium production and replacing proven processes with untried technologies.

Producing materials can be a dirty business, but it is possible to approach it in more sustainable ways. The key to making positive impact lies in transparency. I believe it is important to be open about the challenges faced by all materials producers. Transparency builds trust, and trust is essential for driving change.

Better labelling enables climate-conscious choices

The world has come to a point where it matters more than ever how and where materials are produced. To accelerate the green transition, we also need to create a pull for responsibly sourced materials. We need to introduce more incentives to purchase products with a lower footprint or higher recyclability.

That said, putting a “green” label on a product doesn’t necessarily prove anything. We need better systems for labelling end products. Only then can consumers know that the green label truly means something. That’s how we enable them to make informed and climate-conscious choices. That’s how we make them take responsibility for the products we purchase.

EU, with its new directive for sustainability reporting and the taxonomy for environmentally sustainable activities, is challenging us to pursue several environmental goals simultaneously. We must go beyond the climate issue to learn more about other impacts on nature. Environmental product declarations (EDPs) must be used to document the environmental performance of materials – like the nutrition label on the cereal box.

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I encourage industries to speak openly about the challenges of making materials that the world needs while at the same time taking lengths to change how we make them. It means documenting the footprint of every production step throughout the value chain down to the last CO2 equivalent. With more transparency and traceability throughout the value chain, customers and consumers will know what they get.

This, in my opinion, is the only responsible way of doing business. And as an additional benefit, we will gain trust among customers and consumers alike in a time where a forward-leaning approach to sustainability is increasingly becoming a baseline for purchase.

So let us turn our attention toward how the stuff we consume is made. Otherwise, we won’t get anywhere.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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