LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 5A: FOOD LABELLING 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Carbon footprinting and labelling of agri-food products: practical
issues for the development of Product Category Rules
Rattanawan Mungkung 1,* , Shabbir H. Gheewala 2,3
1 Centre of Excellence on enVironmental strategy for GREEN business (VGREEN) and Department of Environmental Science,
Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand
2 The Joint Graduate School for Energy and Environment (JGSEE), King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok,
Thailand
3 Center for Energy Technology and Environment, Ministry of Education, Thailand
Corresponding author. E-mail: fscirwm@ku.ac.th
ABSTRACT
Carbon Footprint has emerged as an approach to estimate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout the product’s life cycle. The
carbon footprint information is also encouraged to be provided to consumers via Carbon Label as an indicator of the climatefriendliness
to take into account in their purchasing decisions. The carbon footprint and label strategy is expected to stimulate a market
demand for lower carbon products to move towards the reduction of GHG emissions at both production and consumption. Agrifood
is identified as one of the main industrial sectors contributing significantly to GHG emissions. Thus, they are targeted and given
priority in several countries, including Thailand. Implementing carbon footprinting to put carbon labels is intended to raise awareness
of consumers on the carbon footprint attached to their purchasing choices for climate change mitigation. However, it is most critical
that the carbon footprinting methodology is standardized internationally to be able to compare the carbon footprint values between
products. It must be emphasized that though carbon footprints are not intended in principle for comparison between “apples and
oranges”; in practice such comparison by the consumers is difficult to control. Based on a number of carbon footprinting case studies
conducted in Thailand in 2008-2011 (e.g. rice, tapioca, sweet corn, baby corn, asparagus, pineapple, chicken, shrimp, tilapia, etc.),
some major practical issues were raised when developing the Product Category Rules (PCR). These issues are discussed in the paper
along with the solutions that have been arrived at in Thailand for the first few PCRs that have been developed to date. Issues of system
boundaries, product grouping, allocation and data quality are elaborated along with suggestions even for the type of carbon label
based on stakeholder consultation.
Keywords: agri-food products, carbon footprinting, Environmental Product Declaration, Product Category Rules
1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction to carbon footprint
“Carbon Footprint” has emerged as a tool to assess greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout the
product’s life cycle, aiming to identify the hot spots and stimulate emission reduction. The carbon footprint
information is also encouraged to be provided to consumers via Carbon Label as an indicator of the climatefriendliness
to take into account in their purchasing decisions. The carbon footprint and label strategy is expected
to stimulate a market demand for lower carbon products to move towards the reduction of GHG emissions
at both production and consumption. The concept of carbon footprint and carbon label is well accepted,
leading to the development of ISO 14067 which is to be officially launched in 2013. Having recognised the
significance of global warming and climate change impacts, several countries including Thailand have
adopted carbon footprinting and labelling schemes. Agri-food is identified as one of the main industrial sectors
contributing significantly to GHG emissions.
1.2. Carbon footprint and label in Thailand
Thailand is very well aware of the development and implementation of Carbon Footprinting and Carbon
Labelling for climate change mitigation as well as to anticipate trade measures. Food has been the focus on
this particular issue, due mainly to its contribution in GHG emissions at the household level. Also it is the
main product for all consumers who should be convinced to change their consumption behaviour towards
lower emissions. Initiated in 2008, carbon footprint projects on chicken (Chicken snack and Steamed diced
oven chicken), tuna (Canned tuna in sunflower oil) and rice (Jasmine rice and Rice vermicelli/noodle) were
conducted by Kasetsart University (KU) and the Joint Graduate School for Energy and Environment
(JGSEE) (Mungkung et al., 2012). Both projects were aimed to familiarise with the PAS 2050: 2008 methodology
which was available at that point of time and identify the local knowledge gaps.
In 2009, a national pilot project to promote the implementation of product carbon footprint was initiated
by the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation (Public Organisation) (TGO) and National
Metal and Materials Technology Centre (MTEC), Thailand. The project was targeted at the implementation
of product carbon footprinting and labelling leading to development the national guidelines on product car-
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