carbon labeling

On face value, it sounds like a great initiative - supermarkets labelling products, which would allow customers to see at a glance how much greenhouse gas was used to produce the product.

However further into the article, the real story is simply:

"Woolworths and the Australian Food and Grocery Council will examine the benefits of carbon labelling."

The cynic within is screaming "bandwagon, bandwagon!"

Let's face it, supermarket retailing in itself is a particularly ugly business. The carbon footprint of supermarkets within themselves is fundamentally obscene - think of the open refrigerator cabinets groaning under the weight of an array of products that come in all shapes, sizes and packaging.

Do you really think analysing the carbon footprint of a product from go to woe, is going to be in their best interest? Do you really think the benefit of such labeling (to whom the benefit falls I am uncertain) will be a cost effective exercise?

At the end of the day, these corporations are interested in profit and shareholder returns, and share price.

To quote from the article,

"Only 8 per cent of Australia's largest companies believed climate change posed a present threat to their business, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found, but there is an emerging market for "green" businesses.

Last year, consumers spent $12billion on LOHAS goods - a marketing term for lifestyles of health and sustainability."