Carbon labeling schemes

A list of worldwide initiatives related to carbon footprinting and carbon labeling is displayed below:

BSI Standards Solutions led the development of PAS 2050 (Publicly Available Specification) at the request of Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the Carbon Trust. PAS 2050 is a standard for carbon footprint assessment of goods and services and until recently, it was the most comprehensive standard that provides guidelines on how to assess carbon footprint of a product and services. Tesco, the British retail chain, was the largest test of the PAS 2050 draft product carbon footprinting method and the Carbon Trust Carbon Reduction Label. However, in 2012, Tesco announced that it was phasing out the carbon footprinting labels.
The French supermarket chain Casino was the first supermarket in Europe to initiate carbon labeling. The label is called Indice Carbone and is a quantitative label for their private labels. The methodology was developed by the Bio Intelligence Service (Bio IS). The supermarket chain E. Leclerc was also one the first French companies to introduce voluntary carbon labeling. Both these French labels were developed in cooperation with the French Environment and Energy Agency (Ademe).
Migros, a Swiss supermarket chain, introduced its own product labeling program. Migros label Climatop is displayed on the supermarket’s products if the product’s emissions are 20% lower than those of its counterparts within the same product category.
The European Eco label also aims to indicate the amount of emissions on its label. However, the label will not be quantitative but qualitative.
In the US, Carbon Fund created a label called Certified Carbon Free. This was done in cooperation with Carbon Trust and the calculated carbon footprint of the product was offset.
The Californian Climate Conservancy, a spin off from Stanford University, developed the Climate Conscious label, rating products and the greenhouse gas emissions due to their production, thus classifying products into gold, silver or bronze products.
KRAV (organic standards association) in Sweden is currently developing a carbon footprint label for locally produced food products.
In Germany, World Wide Fund for Nature WWF), the Öko-Institut, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and THEMA 1 coordinated a pilot project for a labeling scheme for carbon labels.
The Californian Carbon Label aims to standardize the carbon footprint of companies and oblige companies to give their input and output data.
The Canadian organization CarbonCounted developed a Carbon Counted logo for companies.
Other countries that are assessing carbon labeling are China, Japan, South-Korea, Australia and Finland
Soil & More, a Dutch company focusing on sustainability assessment also developed a CO2 neutral label, for which the offsetting takes place within the agricultural sector. Soil & More’s emission reduction projects are composting projects in developing countries, where green waste is composted to ensure soil fertility.