Why can’t there be a carbon equivalent product rating symbol on all products?
We have health stars, country of origin logos, hazchem and poisons data, product use data. All of this serves a purpose to help us make informed choices and better or safetly use a product.
New motor motor vehicles come with a CO2 sticker.
If there is to be no big fat carbon tax, would rating products better and importantly supplier’s products as low impact or high carbon cost ( green house gas equivalent) help to encourage change.
Would it also be appropriate to see a carbon value on the manufactured portion of a motor vehicle. Vehicles made in low carbon economies such as Sweden should have a lower carbon cost than India or China. A fridge made in Germany may be much better than one from India.
p.s. I fancy koala symbols for lower carbon - 2 is half the benchmark, 4 is a quarter. And perhaps lumps of coal or black miners hats for higher carbon.
The carbon footprint stars while may seem good in practice, may be difficult to implement. The car CO2 emissions is based on use and not necessarily on its manufacture. Most products would have different carbon footprint stars if the source of their energy is different (e.g. solar, hydro, wind, gas, nuclear, coal etc).
I suppose the energy efficiency stars broadly cover the same, but in a different way.
Maybe a better way would be a product stewardship statement be available for all product sold? The statement could include things like recyclable content, embodied energy and water to manufacture, pollution generated from manufacture, recyclability of the product at end of life etc.
Such statement should be easy for a manufacturer to prepare and make available and could be used as a marketing tool to differentiate their products from others.
