The Environmental Facts Label

Japan is launching a campaign asking companies to issue their products with a standard government label with details about the products' carbon footprint. Unfortunately, the labels are entirely voluntary- while they will get a large amount of participation from companies wanting to show off their eco-friendliness, those producing goods which strongly impact the environment will obviously avoid the label.

Visibility is an effective way to get people to think about the impact they are making, and I applaud Japan for taking this first step. It's not a new idea- preexisting examples include Nutritional Facts labels and glowing power meters- but it's one that seems, to me, hugely underutilized. I know that the nutritional labels on foods influence what I buy, even if not all the time. (Think how McDonald's sales would change if they were required to put nutritional facts on their menu.)

A big concern I have for the labeling scheme is how they will represent what are "good" and "bad" levels of environmental impact. It can't be purely numerical; I doubt that many people will know what those numbers actually mean. The Nutritional Facts label uses the "2000 Calorie Diet" as a comparison (thought that obviously is just an average); would different products' carbon footprint have to be printed in comparison to the average for that type of product? If that's even feasible, it could actually hurt the cause for which the labels exist. Most products have similar production processes, meaning that the "average" will be near the existing levels for all products. It'll help against companies which are being blatantly irresponsible and thus falling well away from the mean, but it won't do any good once an equilibrium is reached.

The alternative to an average (assuming you want to have some kind of comparison on the label) is an outlier or an ideal. Using an ideal is risky; you have to have somebody calculating that, and there will be pressure on them from the various industries to keep that ideal nice and close to current values. Additionally, an ideal could easily be too ideal, hurting industry by making products looking bad due to an unachievable goal. An outlier is a safer bet, but there are still problems with that; some categories won't have outliers, some will have special outliers which are technically in the same category (think: a high end car, hand-built but in the $100,000 range versus a mass-produced compact car, a useless comparison since the people going for the compact aren't going to be able to afford the other and so will ignore the carbon rating), and some categories may not have but one or two products.

The other major problem I see with requiring products to wear these labels is that some companies simply won't be able to afford it, or won't have access to all the data. Joe Carpenter doesn't always know where his wood came from, and probably doesn't know how to calculate the emissions from his various equipment. This is a solvable problem, but it requires a significant information infrastructure to be built.

Overall, I think the idea is a good one. If it's executed properly, it could go a long ways towards helping reduce emissions, both through consumer choices and corporate pressure. Here's hoping that Japan does it right, and that other countries will follow suit.