Question

What are the environmental and producer necessities of food labeling?

Answer 1

Enviroment necessities
The issue of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon is one of the simpler more well established
impact categories that could be potentially used within the context of an environmental label for
food. It is however just a single issue and with respect to the impacts of food production and
consumption and in relation to omni-labelling, there are more impact areas to consider many of
which are not so well established and also contain significant areas of uncertainty. The impact areas
include:
 Air quality
 Biodiversity
 Climate change
 Landscape and heritage
 Noise
 Odour
 Resource use
 Soil quality
 Stratospheric ozone depletion
 Waste and recycling
 Water quality

The International Standards Organisation (ISO), as part of its ISO 14000 series of environmental
standards, has classified environmental labels into three typologies – Type I, II and III and has also
specified the preferential principles and procedures for each

Type I labels are normally voluntary, multi-criteria based, third party verified schemes that award a
licence to use the scheme label/logo for specific products or services that meet prescribed standards
based on a life cycle assessment approach including, for example, energy and water consumption,
emissions, disposal,

Type ll of label is the most widely used to provide environmental information to consumers and
other stakeholders. According to the official ISO definition, they are not awarded or verified by an
independent authority but usually developed internally by companies and tend to take the form of a
declaration, a logo, a commercial,

Type III labels are one of the most detailed forms of providing environmental information and like
Type I are based on life cycle impacts. These types of labels are product specific and do not normally
assess or weight the environmental performance of the products they describe but only the raw
data, such as the quantity of emissions, is provided. Their evaluation is left to the consumer.

Producer necessities

There are many areas where eco-labels can offer benefits to industry producer which can be necessery for producer to obtain maximum benifit

 Price premiums and economic incentives;
 Improved corporate reputation and positive brand impact;
 Implies a strong corporate governance;
 Can improve relationships with regulators;
 Can help with risk mitigation and management (crisis avoidance, defence of existing markets,
reduced risk of business disruption, avoidance of fines for environmental pollution);
 May provide a competitive advantage and access to new markets;
 Identification of potential cost reductions such as waste minimisation, efficiency improvements
and/or reduced insurance costs.