June 17 2007

British standard for greener products

The British Standards Institute (BSI), Carbon Trust and Defra have stepped in to help retailers wanting to reduce the environment impact of their products and prove their green credentials without trying to work out a labelling system of their own.

The aim of the work is to develop an agreed method for measuring embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which can be applied across a wide range of product and service categories and their supply chains to enable companies to measure the GHG-related impacts of their products and reduce them.

BSI will oversee the development of the specification using the Carbon Trust pilot methodology as a starting point. The standard will be developed by a Technical Advisory Group and a broad, 2-stage stakeholder consultation due to begin this summer. New and existing best practice work in this area will also be considered in the standard's development.

Climate Change and Environment Minister Ian Pearson said: "The products that businesses make, buy and sell have an impact, both on climate change and the wider environment, at all stages from raw material to when the product is no longer required. These are created by the energy and other resources used, and the resulting emissions, in areas like production, transport and use of products as well as waste from packaging and discarded products.

"More and more, businesses are looking for ways to reduce their impact on the environment. To help them achieve that we need a reliable, consistent way to measure these impacts that businesses recognise, trust and understand. This is important work and will be fundamental in our efforts to move Britain towards a low-carbon economy in the decades ahead."

Emma Herrod