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Carbon footprinting and labelling: Opportunities or barriers for aquacultureRattanwan Tam MungkungDepartment of Environmental Science, Faculty of ScienceKasetsart University, Bangkok, ThailandEmail: fscirwm@ku.ac.thAbstractCarbon foot-printing has emerged as a tool for assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with aproduct, service or organisation, expressed in terms of kg CO 2 equivalent. By taking the life cycle approach (coveringraw material extraction, production processing, use/consumption, waste disposal including transport in all stages – whichis the element of Life Cycle Assessment or LCA technique), it will take into account of all possible GHG to reflect themost realistic situation. The “hot spots” (i.e. life cycle stages and processing activities contribute the high impacts) canbe identified leading to management strategies for GHG reduction.The concept of carbon foot-printing is internationally accepted, mainly for assessing GHG emission and set targets ofGHG reduction. In addition, some countries have applied the result of carbon foot printing for communicating about thecarbon emissions of products via carbon labeling. It is expected that the carbon foot-print labeling system will stimulatethe carbon profile improvement in production and caution the consumers about the carbon emissions they contributeto through their purchasing choices and consumption styles. By informing and influencing the key players along thewhole food supply chain (i.e. producers, retailers and consumers), the carbon labeling strategy is expected to stimulatereduction of greenhouse gas emissions both at production and consumption levels.Carbon foot-printing and labeling schemes have already been implemented in several countries, such as UK, France,US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc. The existing ISOs (14040, 14044, 14025, and 14064) are mainly used asnational guidelines for developing carbon footprint methodology. At the same time, ISO 14067 Carbon Foot-printing(Part I – Quantification, and Part II – Communication) is being developed so as to discuss and finalise the methodologicalissues that will be internationally accepted.Food products are given the priority of applying carbon foot-printing and labeling in many countries, thus it isinteresting to discuss the opportunities to introduce in aquaculture products and to discuss concerned issues/barriersthat may have for considerations147