Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display

Trebbin, Anika; Geburt, Katrin

doi:10.3390/su162410876

Open AccessReview

Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display

by

Anika Trebbin

^*

and

Katrin Geburt

Thuenen Institute of Market Analysis, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Sustainability 2024, 16(24), 10876; https://doi.org/10.3390/su162410876

Submission received: 27 September 2024 / Revised: 20 November 2024 / Accepted: 4 December 2024 / Published: 12 December 2024

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Consumer Behaviour and Food Choice)

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Abstract

:

The food system has been in focus as one of the major drivers behind the environmental and climate crisis. In this context, there is a growing need for more transparent and reliable information on the environmental impacts of food production and consumption as part of the transition process towards more sustainable food systems. Stakeholders along the food supply chain are confronted with multiple requirements and systems as the demand for environmental reporting at the product, company, and country level increases all at the same time. Simultaneously, consumers are often more interested in the sustainability of the food products they consume. While there is currently a lack of coherent supranational or even national legislation regulating methodological procedures, private initiatives for the environmental and carbon labelling of food products have developed rapidly. This article finds that most labels are characterised by a lack of transparency, clarity, and comprehensibility. Examining 14 labels, mainly from the German food retail market, we found a puzzling variety of data sources and methodologies used to calculate the values and claims displayed. We highlight this variety in data sources and footprint values by looking at milk and beef as case studies.

Keywords:

food labelling; carbon labelling; environmental labelling; footprint; LCA

1. Introduction

Sustainable and ethical food consumption is an imminent and highly political topic since the food system has been identified as a major driver behind the exhaustion of the earth’s biocapacity budget and related problems. Globally, while humanity’s annual demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what the Earth can regenerate by more than 60%, we use half of this overstretched biocapacity to feed ourselves [1]. In addition to depleting natural resources, agri-food processes account for about a third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and have a huge negative impact on planetary systems [2,3,4,5].

As well as being environmentally unsustainable, the current food system is also threatening human health [6]: hunger currently affects 9.2% of the world’s population and is increasing, and 42% of the world’s population cannot afford a healthy diet, contributing to a wide range of diet-related diseases [7]. A shift towards food production systems and diets that keep our food system within planetary boundaries while ensuring human health is, therefore, urgently needed [5]. A concept for what a planetary health diet might look like was presented by the EAT-Lancet Commission in 2019 [4].

While we know the figures for how much we can emit and use within the planet’s ecological limits, and what kind of lifestyles and diets this implies, the challenge now is to turn this knowledge into action, and the action into real change. This is a daunting task, given the scale of the radical system-wide changes required, the complexity of the issues, the diversity of actors involved, and the pressing timeframe for the necessary transformation. In the sense of a systemic approach, the shift towards more sustainable diets can—and should—be initiated simultaneously at different leverage points and value chain stages in order to create sustainable and healthy food environments [8]. Changing food consumption habits is a long-term challenge due to the long-lasting cultures behind dietary behaviour [9,10], and creating enabling environments for sustainable production and consumption is a key factor [11].

A first step towards more sustainable food consumption could be to inform and empower consumers by improving their knowledge on the environmental impact of food products [12,13]. This could be carried out via educational campaigns and measures, for example. Another one of many possible measures, and a very sensitive one at that, is to label food products according to their environmental impact. The 1998 EU Energy Efficiency Label for domestic appliances, for example, is a relatively simple way of informing consumers about the energy consumption and efficiency of the electrical appliances they are about to buy, such as refrigerators or dishwashers. It has been shown to increase the energy efficiency of labelled products by 9% over a period of five years [14]. Collecting, calculating, and presenting information on the environmental impact of food products, however, is much more complex.

Calls for information on the carbon and environmental footprints of food products to help consumers, but also public purchasers and businesses, make greener choices have been made for more than a decade [15]. In this narrative, such labels are generally perceived as a well-established method of providing information, and consumers are generally considered to be receptive to and interested in such information about the food they buy. However, the real-world effectiveness of (food) labels remains unclear [16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25], with consumer attitude often being reported as doubtful about potential greenwashing [26,27,28].

Against this background, back in 2011, Vandenbergh at el. [29] already suggested that, despite obvious shortcomings, a private carbon labelling scheme could positively influence (1) corporate supply chains and (2) consumer behaviour in the absence of more efficient, comprehensive, or ideal but hypothetical (public) approaches. On the other hand, there are concerns about the negative steering effects of food environmental labels, due to, for example, the ‘wrong’ definition of system boundaries and reference units, or the inclusion of one or more environmental impact categories [30].

Another concern is that motivating (voluntary) pro-environmental actions will undermine support for more robust and effective policies and actions. Garnett [31] argues that “It is not clear whether introducing environmental footprint labelling would encourage policy makers to introduce additional and more sustainable food policies; or whether the operational effort and political capital spent on labelling could crowd out more effective policies”. With regard to consumers, Maki et al. [32] examined the spillover effects of a pro-environmental behaviour and found that “simple and painless” behaviour (such as buying the food that is labelled as more environmentally friendly) does not automatically serve as a gateway to more effective pro-environmental actions, or may even hinder them.

Despite many unanswered questions about whether environmental footprint labelling would be effective in bringing about more sustainable diets, or whether it represents one of many ‘micro-construction sites’ that distract us from tackling larger food system problems, Vandenbergh et al.’s [29] call has been heard, and the initial tender shoots of private (and, to some extent, public) carbon and environmental food labelling schemes have grown into an arcane jungle of actors, approaches, data, and designs [33,34,35,36,37]. Currently, there are no internationally agreed standards for the environmental or carbon labelling of food, what type of data should be collected and how, how exactly footprints should be calculated, and how best to present and validate the information. Most attempts to assess the environmental impact of food use life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. However, even within LCA-based approaches, there are variations due to the diversity of methodologies and standards applied, sources and databases used, and actors involved. Therefore, there is now a renewed call for more systematic and transparent approaches to the collection, handling, and presentation of information on the environmental footprint of food [6,37,38].

In this article, we aim to perambulate the “label jungle” [34] in an attempt to better understand the data on the display. We first present an overview of the current European policy context for the environmental labelling of food products and private initiatives in this area. While other recent studies such as Sanye et al. [13] also review European food labels with regard to the clarity of the information provided and the transparency of the footprint calculation methods used, our specific focus is on the sources and databases used by the most common labels. By using milk and beef as examples, we highlight the fact that, even across LCA databases, which are the most commonly used sources of footprint information behind environmental food labels today, values vary due to a number of reasons, and that the fact of footprint variability is not sufficiently communicated to consumers.

2. Framing the Context

At present, the policy landscape pertaining to sustainable and healthy food consumption in Europe, but also beyond, is characterised by a significant degree of fragmentation. No single EU legislation has yet been developed to standardise food sustainability claims [8]. In light of the above challenges, the link between food legislation and environmental issues in the European Union has become increasingly explicit in recent years, culminating in the 2019 Green Deal, in which the EU aims to become the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% of the 1990 levels by 2030 [39]. At the heart of this action plan is the 2020 Farm to Fork Strategy, which aims to transition to a sustainable European food system with a reduced impact on climate change and environmental degradation [40]. As this transition will not be possible without a change in diet, the Farm to Fork Strategy announced the proposal of a framework for a sustainable food system, including guidelines for the certification and labelling of the sustainability performance of food products [41]. A decision on this initiative is currently pending.

However, in January 2024, the European Parliament adopted the Green Claims Directive [42]. The Directive, which still needs to be transposed into national law in each member state, aims to remove false or misleading claims about, for example, the environmental friendliness or climate neutrality of products from their packaging. The Directive significantly strengthens the regulation of carbon and environmental labelling by requiring companies to carry out an assessment to substantiate explicit environmental claims made in business-to-consumer marketing practices and to meet a number of requirements, which will also be verified by Member States. The Directive does not yet prescribe a single methodology for assessing the environmental impact of a product, but indicates that the European Commission may adopt delegated acts to establish, for example, specific life-cycle-based rules for certain product groups and sectors [43,44].

In the absence of a consistent transnational regulation, a number of countries have developed or are currently developing legislation on the carbon or environmental labelling of food independently, with Denmark and France being the most active (see Table 1). In Denmark, the government has allocated €1.2 million for the development of a government-controlled, voluntary climate label and has commissioned a working group led by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration [45,46]. The Salling Group, Denmark’s largest retailer, translated the working group’s recommendations into a concrete label in 2023, which is currently under discussion [47]. The retailer has also funded the initial development of a free climate database [48]. France announced to introduce a voluntary environmental label for food products in 2024, which may later become mandatory [49]. Similarly, the UK does not plan to introduce a mandatory eco-label for food, but is working to develop a methodology that would then be made mandatory for eco-labelling [38].

In Germany, a new nutrition policy (“Ernährungsstrategie”), drafted in 2022 and adopted by the cabinet in January 2024 [50], does not envisage the introduction of a climate or environmental label, but emphasises the need for better consumer information on the environmental impact of food. The strategy has also taken into account the recommendations of a Citizens’ Assembly on the Transformation of Food set up by the German Bundestag in 2023, in which the participants themselves agreed on the issues they wanted to address in the food system. In the recommendations presented in January 2024, the need for a mandatory government food label to facilitate more sustainable and conscious consumption was identified as the second most pressing issue for participating citizens. The label should ideally combine the information on climate impact, and animal welfare and health, with climate impact initially limited to greenhouse gas emissions, while other environmental aspects (such as resource conservation and biodiversity) could be added within three to five years of the label’s introduction [51]. A number of other reports also underline the general desire of consumers to have more information on the sustainability of food products and a greater interest in sustainable nutrition in general [9,52,53,54,55,56].

Table 1. Legislative initiatives towards sustainability labelling of food at national level in Europe.

Country	Frame	Measure	Timeline	Source
Denmark	Global Climate Action Strategy 2020	state-controlled, voluntary climate label for food products	2022 onwards	Southey [45]
Finland	The first carbon label appeared in 2008, and to date seven Finnish food companies include carbon labels on their product packages		2008 onwards	Hartikainen et al. [57]
France	Climate and Resilience Law 2021	Voluntary environmental labelling for food products	2024 onwards	Hélias et al. [49]
Germany		New dietary policy	2024 onwards	BMEL [50]
Sweden	Project: standards for climate marking of foods	Climate marking of food that, on the average, gives an effect of a 25% lower climate impact than the reference	2009 onwards	Euractiv [58]
UK	National Food Strategy 2021	Mandatory, consistent product level methodology for voluntary food eco-labels (IGD and Defra)	2022 onwards	Defra [38] and IGD [59]
UK	Carbon Trust (government-funded private company)	Oversees carbon footprint certification and labelling; awards the Product Carbon Footprint Label		Alves and Edwards [60]

Source: authors’ compilation.

Besides the direct environmental labelling of food products, a number of countries are also currently revising their dietary guidelines to include the environmental impact of diets [61], such as Germany [62], Switzerland [63], Austria [64], and the Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden [65].

In addition to legislation directly regulating the carbon/environmental labelling of food products, recent years have seen the emergence of laws and guidelines on sustainability reporting that affect multiple levels and actors in the food system. This increased demand for environmental impact reporting has been described as “fast and furious” in a recent OECD report [37]. Businesses such as food and beverage companies and retailers, as well as farmers, are faced with a rapidly evolving set of requirements and regulations at the product, organisational, country, or regional level, as well as an increasing need to disclose sustainability information (Table 2).

Increasing mandatory data disclosure requirements from governments, but also from businesses, have led to a “confusing landscape of initiatives, approaches and methodologies competing for attention and a lack of coordinated work to provide the data required across the agri-food sector” [38]. Data are, of course, the foundation of any environmental impact assessment and should be (1) fit for purpose, (2) accurate, (3) transparent, and (4) comparable. However, generating impact information that tracks food products along often geographically dispersed, complex, and sometimes opaque supply chains is challenging. The problems of data availability and quality are compounded by inconsistent quantification methods, as there is no single standard methodology for calculating environmental or carbon footprints, but, rather, several (see Figure 1) [66].

A commonly used methodology for assessing the environmental impact of food products is the life cycle assessment (LCA). An LCA describes the impact of the entire production process of a product (or a firm) on the environment as an input–output analysis from cradle to grave. Moreover, within LCA approaches, several calculation methodologies exist that quantify the results of a life cycle inventory analysis and assign them to one or more environmental categories. Methods exist to assess only one environmental category (single-issue), while other methods are used to assess multiple environmental categories (multi-issue). An example for a single-issue method is IPCC 2021, which calculates the carbon footprint. Furthermore, LCA methods can be categorised into European methods (e.g., Environmental Footprint), global methods (e.g., ReCiPe 2016 Endpoint and Midpoint), and North American methods (e.g., TRACI 2.1). Methods for the water footprint (e.g., AWARE) are usually listed separately [67,68].

Standards on how to deploy an LCA range from setting very general guidelines for multiple sectors to more specific guidance on how to calculate footprints for specific sectors or product groups. ISO 14040 and 14044 [69,70] are often cited as the first standards on environmental footprinting, which are the basis for and compatible with all or most other standards. These general standards deal not only with carbon footprints, but with a wide range of (environmental) sustainability issues. While some standards are relevant to the calculation of organisational footprints—Scope 1 emissions (from a company’s own activities), Scope 2 (from purchased energy), and Scope 3 (from all other activities in the company’s supply chain)—others focus on the product as the reference. These are particularly important for food environmental labelling. The first such standard was PAS 2050 [71] (replaced by PAS 2060 in 2014 [72]), published by the British Standards Initiative in 2008. ISO published its standard on product carbon footprints (ISO 14067) in 2018 [73]. This is directly based on ISO 14040 and 14044. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Life Cycle Standard was first published in 2011 and is very similar to PAS 2050, getting closer with each revision [74].

Figure 1. Methodological approaches and standards for the calculation food carbon/environmental. Source: authors, adapted from OECD [74].

More specific standards aim to produce the best possible footprint for products in a particular product group, and try to take into account a particular type of agricultural activity. Industry-specific guidelines, such as the International Dairy Federation’s (IDF) Carbon Footprint Standard, try to ensure that calculations follow the same approach, for example, when allocating dairy production between milk, meat, and manure. It is not clear whether, and to what extent, these specific standards and farm-level calculation tools are aligned with more general accounting standards. While some standards have been compared to each other [75], it remains unclear what variation in footprint values the use of one standard versus the other would imply.

In order to promote consistency in environmental labelling, methodologies should be streamlined as much as possible so that values can be compared across regions and products [37,38]. Currently, there is also a need to identify the number of variations in footprint value that originate from different calculation methods and compare those to the variations that occur in footprints of food due to various different practices in the value chains, as laid out by Poore and Nemecek [76], for example. Assuming that different methodologies do play a role, more efforts need to be undertaken to harmonise these approaches. As this will assumably not be achievable in a comprehensive way, a tool or platform might be developed that integrates various approaches to ensure interoperability, similar to what Hestia [77] or the Mondra Coalition [78] are trying to achieve. Compared to the current labelling landscape, transparency about methodologies applied and data used should also be improved. Being transparent with such information would have positive effects on consumer trust and, therewith, the efficiency of the label itself [79]. While, for those reasons, some advocate such a labelling scheme be made mandatory and state-run, making governments responsible for a range of compliance and enforcement measures, the exact costs of such a scheme have not yet been clearly identified. Alternatively, governments could provide the framing context for labelling requirements that would come in addition to a number of existing market access requirements [36].

3. Materials and Methods

This article is designed as a desk study to provide an overview of current food environmental and carbon labelling initiatives in the European retail sector, as well as the underlying data and methodologies. While the variety of labels has already been discussed, a closer look at how data are generated and used in existing labels seemed important in light of current debates on the governance of food environmental labelling. For the selection of labels, the most well-known and present labels in the food retail sector were chosen, with a focus on the German but also the wider European market. Only labels making carbon or environmental footprint claims were included, excluding all labels making claims about, for example, regional or local production, animal welfare, or value chain characteristics such as fair trade or deforestation. Once the labels had been selected, detailed information on the 14 selected labels and the initiating organisation was collected from their respective websites. The information collected included descriptive characteristics such as geographical origin and distribution of the label, number of products labelled, and type of label. In addition, methodological information was collected on the data and methods used to calculate the label values and the period of validity of the label. For most information, additional grey literature, such as publicly available methodological reports, was included in the analysis. In most cases, contact was made by e-mail with the label institution, as not all of the required information was available on websites and in reports, especially information on methodological details. Regarding data sources on which the carbon and sustainability labels are based, we distinguish between (1) generic data obtained from free and commercial food LCA databases, (2) specific/primary data from within the value chain, (3) the label publishers’ own calculations, and (4) other sources. In total, 12 LCA databases were identified as data sources for the labels in this study. Additional four databases were added to the analysis as they are potential sources of generic footprint data of food products. Databases included in this study had to meet the following criteria: (1) contain food or food and agricultural products, (2) cover at least the environmental category climate change or additional categories, (3) refer to Europe, and (4) be active databases or under construction. Databases that are available in the format of online tools or as Excel tables were included in the overview.

As an example of the practical application of carbon footprint databases, we compared the CO₂e footprint value of two products across all databases. We chose whole cow’s milk and beef from Germany or another European country asexamples as these products are present in most databases covered. As not all databases contained whole milk, comparative values for semi-skimmed milk were included in the evaluation. The results for milk and beef from the individual databases are compared and differences are investigated.

4. Results and Discussion

While policy initiatives towards or touching on food sustainability labelling are underway at several levels, the private sector is a big step ahead in (co-)developing and implementing such labels and information. More than 15 years ago, the UK retailer Tesco introduced a carbon reduction label and announced plans to label 70,000 of its products [80,81]—plans that were later dropped. There are now a large number of private companies and initiatives involved in the carbon or eco-labelling of agri-food products in many different countries and organisations. A key driver of this activity is the frequently reported consumer demand for information on the (environmental) sustainability of their food [53,55,56,62,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89]. While the number of reports highlighting this need is almost endless, studies also show a gap between intention and behaviour when it comes to actual purchase decisions [17,19,20,21,90,91,92]. Nevertheless, private carbon and eco-labelling initiatives are gaining momentum. What potential changes the recent EU Green Claims Directive will bring in this respect remains to be seen. In addition to the proliferation of labelling initiatives, the variety of label content and design is puzzling, as are the many different ways in which information is calculated, presented, and verified (if at all).

Before looking in detail at the different types of carbon or environmental labels on food, it is important to note that there is no clear or intuitive distinction between carbon and environmental labels and carbon and environmental claims. In general, claims can be seen as simply stating that a food product is, for example, “carbon neutral”, “carbon positive”, etc., whereas labels usually involve a more concrete reference to the statement they make, for example, to a specific value and source, and should also involve some verification, ideally by a third party [93]. While labelling activities are also becoming increasingly common in the food service sector, for example, with the display of footprints by dish on canteens and restaurant menus, this review focuses on labelling at the retail level. Here, labels and claims on a product’s packaging can refer to the product itself, the production process or aspects of it, the manufacturing company, the packaging, or the brand. Sometimes, it is not clear which of the above is actually covered by the label. Labels can be issued by the food manufacturer, the retailer, the brand, or an external labelling or certification body. The labels summarised in Table 3 are examples of such labels. They vary widely in terms of the number of products they cover and their regional spread. While most carbon labels are compensation labels, meaning that the emissions caused by the production of the labelled product have been fully compensated by its manufacturers and/or producers, most sustainability labels show absolute values or a range of values related to a unit of the product, mostly its mass. The scope, i.e., the system boundary, is different for each label, which is not mentioned on the label itself and, therefore, does not allow the consumer to understand which aspects of a product’s life cycle have actually been assessed for sustainability or climate friendliness and which have been left out.

As shown in Table 3, most of the labels examined have a validity period of 1–2, sometimes 3 years. The validity period of the footprint value displayed on the label is crucial for the understanding of the information as such, i.e., the average footprint of the product’s value chain at that point in time. As one important motivation behind the labelling of food products regarding their carbon footprint is to successively reduce that footprint by making improvements along the product’s value chain, these changes also need to be taken into account on the label itself. All labels are, therefore, reviewed or recalculated after a given period of time. Most labels, however, do not communicate their validity period on the product itself in order not to overload consumers with information. The aspect of temporary validity of label values could, for example, be part of further information provided via a code next to the label (see below).

Less than half of the labels examined here are verified by an external third party. While some auditors are well-known in other auditing fields, such as the German TÜV or the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), others offer label verification as a private business in the same way they offer footprint calculations, such as CarbonCloud or MyClimate. While the external verification of such labels is strongly recommended, the selection of auditing bodies and the qualification of auditors is a key task and should itself be subject to guidance and monitoring.

As information on carbon or environmental footprints is relatively complex, consumers may appreciate additional information on how to interpret the label itself, on data sources and calculation methods used, or on label certification and verification. Most of the labels surveyed provide such information on the product itself via a URL or QR code. Although consumers seem somewhat reluctant to actually access additional information on a product provided via a bar or QR code [94,95], it is advisable to provide such additional data to make the labelling system more transparent and the label itself simpler.

Table 3. Food labels reviewed and their main characteristics.

Type of Label	Carbon Labels								Sustainability Labels
Label Name	Climate Footprint	ClimatePartnerzertifiziert	Climateline	Klimaneutral	Klimapositiv	MyClimate Impact	Product Carbon Footprint Label	WASA CO₂ Neutral	Eaternity Score	Eco Score	Eco Score	Eco Impact	M-Check	Planet Score	Pro Planet
assigned by	Oatly	Climatepartner	Zukunfts-werk eG	Fokus Zukunft	Hipp	MyClimate	Carbon Trust	Barilla/WASA	Eaternity	Beelong	several	Foundation Earth	Migros	ITAB, Sayari, Very Good Future	Rewe
Country of origin	SWE	DEU	DEU	DEU	CHE	CHE	GBR	SWE	CHE	CHE	FRA	IRL	CHE	FRA	DEU
Launch year	N/A	2023	2012	N/A	2021	2002	2007	2017	2009	2014	2021	2021	2021	2021	2010
Number of food products labelled	N/A	N/A	~160	N/A	N/A	N/A	>27,000	N/A	>100,000	~100,000	400,000	N/A	>5000	720,000	>1500
Validity period (years)	1–2	1	1	2	N/A	3	2	1	1	2	1–3	1	2–3	N/A	0.5
Scope	farm to shelf	cradle to grave	cradle to grave	cradle to gate	cradle to gate	cradle to grave	cradle to grave	farm to shelf	farm to processing	farm to shelf	farm to processing	farm to shelf	farm to shelf	cradle to gate	no single rule
Reference unit	kg product	product	product	product	product	product	product	product	daily food unit (DFU)	kcal product	kg product	kg product	kg product	kg product	product
Environmental categories	CO₂e								4	9	11	16	2	5	6
Type of value	absolute	compensation	compensation	compensation	compensation	compensation	“carbon emissions reduced since”	compensation	absolute, 4 subcategories 3 stars	range A–E points/100	range A–E	range A–G	0–5 stars	range A–E + subcategories	“better than”
Accounting standard applied	N/A	GHG Protocol [96]	GHG protocol, ISO 14064-1 [97]	GHG Protocol	N/A	ISO 14040 ISO 14044 ISO 14067	ISO 14067 PAS 2060	PAS 2060	ISO 14067	PEF [98]	PEF	PEF	ISO 14040 ISO 14044	PEF	no LCA
Third-party verification											?	?		?
Verification body	Carbon Cloud	independent auditor such as TÜV	--	GUTcert	EMAS	--	--	DNV Business Assurance	--	internal expert committee	--	--	myClimate	--	--
Further information on packaging	no	ID with tracking URL	ID with tracking URL	QR code	no	no	“learn more” URL	no	via barcode	ID with tracking URL	no	“learn more” URL	“learn more” URL	no	QR code

There is an equally wide range of sources of information on which label claims are based (see Figure 2). We distinguish four types of sources: (1) generic data from LCA databases, (2) primary/specific data from within the supply chain, (3) other data such as own calculations, scientific papers, or internal databases, and, finally, (4) sources that were not transparent to us as they could not be identified. As can be seen in Figure 2, some labels rely on only one source, while others claim to use up to seven different sources, depending on their applicability. However, from a consumer perspective, it is not clear which source was used to assess which aspect of the product and, for larger labels, which products, product groups, or categories were assessed using which source and how the sources were combined.

4.1. Data Sources

4.1.1. Databases

Footprint data from LCA databases form the basis of most label calculations (see Figure 2). The databases used by at least one current climate or sustainability label to calculate LCAs are listed in Table 4, along with other databases that have a wide scientific distribution but are not currently used in labels. The databases listed mainly contain food or food and agricultural products, cover at least one environmental category (climate change), and are European in scope. All databases are active or under development. Several formats of databases are possible, such as online tools and Excel spreadsheets.

Table 4. Databases used by presented labels.

Name of Database (Reference)	Institution	Country of Origin	Fee-Based	Only for Food	Number of Food Products	System Boundary	Environmental Categories Displayed	Values Adjustable
Agribalyse 3.1 (LCI DB) [99]	ADEME, INRAE	FR	no	yes	>2500	up to supermarket or plate	16	yes
Agri-Footprint (LCI DB) [100]	Blonk consultants	NL	yes	yes	5000 agricultural products and processes	up to farm gate or factory gate	dependent on the method	yes
BONSAI (prototype) [101]	Aalborg University	DK	no	no	unknown	up to factory gate or consumer	1 (CO₂e)	no
Carbon Cloud (SC) [102]	Carbon Cloud	SE	both	yes	30,000	up to farm gate, factory gate, store gate	1 (CO₂e)	yes (fee)
Defra	Defra	UK	no	no	unknown	cradle to grave	1 (CO₂e)	yes
Ecoinvent V3.9.1 background database (LCI DB) [103]	Ecoinvent Association	CH	no	no	not specified	dependent on the method	dependent on the method	yes
Hestia [77]	Hestia	UK	no	agricultural products	unknown	not specified	20+	yes
ifeu [104]	Institut für Energie und Umweltforschung (ifeu)	DE	no	yes	188 foods	up to supermarket	1 (CO₂e)	no
Poore and Nemecek [105]	Oxford University	UK/CH	no	yes	40 food categories	up to supermarket	5	no
ProBas [106] (under revision)	German Environmental Agency (UBA)	DE	no	no	625 plant and animal products	database under revision	database under revision	no
RISE food climate database (SC) [107]	RISE	SE	both	yes	>750	up to factory gate (excl. packaging)	1 (CO₂e)	yes (fee)
SALCA (LCI DB) [108]	Agroscope	CH	no	agricultural products	900 agricultural products and production datasets	up to field, farmgate	9	no
Sharp [109]	Wageningen University	NL	no	yes	944	entire chain incl. consumption and disposal	2 (CO₂e, land use)	no
WFLDB Quantis (LCI DB) [110]	Quantis	CH	yes	yes	>130 products	animal production	3 (CO₂e, land use, water)	unknown
ZHAW Agri-Food Datenbank (LCI DB) [111]	Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZAHW)	CH	yes	yes	>600	up to preparation of food in the restaurant	17	no
Databases with a wide distribution, but not used by labels
ESU World Food LCA Database (LCI DB) [112]	ESU services	CH	yes	yes	>2500 datasets for food	dependent on the method, often up to supermarket	dependent on the method	yes (unit processes)
GaBi (LCI DB) [113]	Sphera	DE	yes	no	unknown, 19,000 datasets in total	dependent on the method	10+	yes
The Big Climate Database [48]	Concito	DK	no	yes	503 foods	up to supermarket	1 (CO₂e)	no
Example for a commercial database and service company, currently not used in labels
CarbonTag (under construction) (SC) [114]	CarbonTag	UK	yes	yes	30,000	up to supermarket	1 (CO₂e)	planned

LCI DB: Life Cycle Inventory database, SC: service company.

There are several ways to categorise the databases listed in Table 4. One way is to classify them according to whether they contain only the environmental category climate change (expressed in CO₂ equivalents) or whether they also contain other environmental categories. The databases listed here range from one category (CO₂) to more than 20 categories. The databases can also be divided into Life Cycle Inventory databases (LCI DB), which require LCA software and a database for calculating environmental impacts, and other databases, where the dataset can be accessed without LCA software. Examples of Life Cycle Inventory databases are Ecoinvent and Agri-Footprint. The LCI databases contain impact assessment methods that can be used to calculate the impacts of different environmental categories.

Furthermore, data sources can be categorised into non-commercial or commercial public sources and commercial companies providing LCA services. There are currently a number of commercial LCA providers. One of them is the commercial company CarbonTag, which provides LCAs through its commercial database of the same name. It is listed at the end of the table for comparison with the other databases. The advantage of commercial databases is often the ability to calculate values and create your own LCAs after purchase. The tools in commercial databases can be used to identify sources of the greatest environmental impact, or to calculate the environmental impact of different foods, meals, or diets. Carbon Cloud and RISE provide carbon footprints for some foods for free, but charge for more detailed LCA information. ClimateHub is a free tool from Carbon Cloud that can be used for non-commercial purposes. Larger amounts of data and commercial use will be charged for. RISE in Sweden has an open-access list of 40 food products. For more food LCA information, the complete list (RISE food climate database) has to be rented for one year.

Within Europe, Switzerland with its active databases is the most active country in terms of current food LCA databases. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany also have at least two active food LCA databases. France, on the other hand, has developed Agribalyse, a comprehensive country-specific database (Table 4). The GaBi database developed in Germany can also be used in Europe. However, the databases are very different in terms of the range of products they actually cover. Some databases have been established for a long time. ProBas is currently being revised and expanded, while Bonsai is still at the prototype stage. CarbonTag is a start-up that has released a database of the same name. It is still under development and will be extended.

Of the nineteen databases listed in Table 4, fourteen are specialised in food and agricultural products, while Ecoinvent is a background database. The number of food products included varies considerably between the databases. They range from 188 food products in the ifeu database to more than 2500 food products in the Agribalyse and ESU World Food LCA databases or 30,000 in the Carbon Cloud database. However, the number of data is not always relevant, as sometimes only the number of records in a database is given, but not the number of food items with their LCAs actually contained in a specific database. The Hestia database, for example, allows anyone to contribute and add their datasets. In this case, data quality verification is important. The fact that datasets or food products are, in some cases, continuously added to a database, but not immediately visible to the user, also makes it difficult to compare the contents of the database.

The system boundaries also differ between the databases. They range from only agriculture/animal production/field/farm gate in some databases to the whole chain including consumption and waste in other databases. In LCI DB, the system boundary depends on the process used. In the Agribalyse Excel spreadsheet, it is possible to select the system boundary individually. This is unique for a free food LCA database. In other databases, such as the commercial ESU World Food LCA database, the results can be displayed up to the desired system boundary by selecting the appropriate dataset. The Agribalyse database stands out from other databases due to its large amount of LCA data for food and environmental factors. No other European database offers this amount of data freely and publicly up to the system boundary of the supermarket or consumer.

4.1.2. Case Studies: Milk and Beef

Examples of the carbon footprints of milk and beef are shown using the open-access databases in Table 4 and data provided by CarbonTag. The aim was to map milk and beef products from different databases that were as similar as possible to see how carbon footprints in the databases differ. The selected carbon footprints are from whole milk and beef produced in Northern to Central Europe where possible. The Agribalyse database contains food products related to France, so the milk and beef data are also from France. In the case of the ifeu, Probas, BONSAI, and CarbonTag databases, milk and beef data are from Germany. Probas also provides data for European milk. As the Swedish RISE database also includes foods consumed in that country, the open-access list of RISE includes a semi-skimmed milk from Sweden as the most comparable milk in the database. Beef in that database, however, originates from Spain. For comparison, a global milk from BONSAI and Poore and Nemecek and a global average beef from Poore and Nemecek were also included in Table 5 and Table 6. The aim was to show milk and beef products with the same system boundaries all the way to the supermarket or consumer. As a comparison, in the case of milk, some datasets from Agribalyse were also selected with the system boundary up to the farm gate. As BONSAI did not have a value for German whole milk up to the supermarket, a value up to the farm gate was used. With the exception of data from CarbonTag, other commercial databases were not assessed for milk and beef footprints here, as these commercial databases are not open and the food carbon footprints from these databases cannot usually be shared with third parties.

The whole milk selected for Table 5 from Europe with the system boundary to the farm gate shows values of 0.82–1.20 kg CO₂e/kg milk, with an average value of 1.05 kg ± 0.16 kg CO₂e/kg milk, with data coming from two databases. As expected, this value is significantly lower than the average CO₂e value of whole milk with the system boundary up to the supermarket or beyond (1.62 ± 0.24 kg CO₂e/kg milk). This is due to the many other sources of GHG emissions that occur after the milk leaves the farm. These include transport to the processing plant, processing, transport to the retail outlet or supermarket, and refrigeration.

Table 5. Carbon footprints for conventional cow’s milk from selected databases.

Database	CO₂e/kg Milk	Description Milk: Name, System Boundary, Transport	Region	Year	Calculation Standard
Agribalyse version 3.1.1	1.08	milk conventional, lowland milk system, 10–30% silage maize, up to farm gate	FR	2023	ISO 14040, LEAP [115], PEF
	1.10	milk, national average, up to farm gate
	1.20	milk conventional, highland milk system, grass-fed, up to farm gate
	1.31	semi-skimmed milk, pasteurised, up to supermarket
	1.49	whole milk, pasteurised, up to supermarket
BONSAI	0.82	raw milk, up to farm gate	DE	2016	ISO 14040, ISO 14044
CarbonTag	1.51	whole milk, 250 km transport, up to supermarket	DE	2023	GHG Protocol, ISO 14064-1, ISO 14064-2 [116], guidelines of the IPCC [117]
ifeu	1.3	whole milk, UHT milk, composite cardboard, up to supermarket	DE	2019	ISO 14040, ISO 14044, ISO 14067
	1.4	whole milk, ESL, composite cardboard, up to supermarket
	1.7	whole milk, organic, ESL milk, composite cardboard, up to supermarket
ProBas	1.95	whole milk, 100 km transport, up to supermarket	DE	2010	ISO 14040, ISO 14048 [118], (system expansion method with GEMIS)
	1.97	whole milk, truck 100km, up to supermarket,	EU	2010
	1.89	whole milk, truck 100km, up to supermarket	EU	2020
Sharp	1.59	whole milk, cow milk, up to consumer	EU	2018	N/A
The Big Climate Database	0.65	whole milk 3.5% fat, conventional, 200km transport, packaging tetrabrick, up to supermarket	DK	2023	ISO 14040, ISO 14044
ClimateHub (CarbonCloud)	1.4	whole milk 3.5% fat, up to factory gate (incl. transport, packaging, storage), primary and secondary data of CarbonCloud	DE	2023	ISO 14067, GHG protocol
ifeu	1.1	semi-skimmed milk, UHT milk, composite cardboard, up to supermarket	DE	2019	ISO 14040, ISO 14044, ISO 14067
RISE food climate database. The open-access list, extract from the Rise climate database of food v.1.7	0.9	semi-skimmed milk, up to leaving the industry/food producer (without packaging)	SE	2022	ISO 14040
Poore and Nemecek suppl. material	2.8	milk up to supermarket	global	2018	ISO 14044

Looking at whole milk up to the farm gate, even within one country in Europe (France in Table 5), differences in CO₂e per kg of milk due to different production systems and feeds can be seen. Within production systems, imported feed has a higher emission than home-produced feed [119]. Feed quality, grazing management [120], and improved feed conversion efficiency are also factors that cause different emissions [121]. Enteric fermentation [122] and on-farm practices such as manure and fertiliser management are always options for varying milk LCAs, although milk yield per cow has an even greater impact on the carbon footprint [123]. Another factor is the N cycle and the reduction in N surplus, which can affect GHG emissions on dairy farms [124]. Farming and management strategies such as high herd efficiency [119], the intensification of farming [125], and a reduced number of young cows or extended lactation [121], as well as the health and husbandry system have a major influence on GHG emissions or offer potential for reduction [120]. All of these factors can lead to changes in CO₂e emissions, while these differences can extend further up the milk value chain, for example, to the supermarket.

The CO₂e values for whole milk up to the supermarket range from 0.65 in the Big Climate Database to 1.97 kg CO₂e/kg milk (average value 1.62 ± 0.24 kg CO₂e/kg milk) and come from seven different databases. Most of the conventional cow’s milk values give a similar value; only the CO₂e values in the ProBas database are significantly higher and the Sharp milk value is slightly higher. In addition, when looking at the CO₂ footprint from the Big Climate database, it is noticeable that this milk value is significantly lower compared to the other databases. In this database, the lower CF for milk compared to other LCA studies is due to the consistent LCA allocation between milk and meat products from dairy cows.

The reasons for the differences can only be assumed. Significant differences in emissions can occur during milk production, but also during processing or, for example, transport and packaging, or due to different calculation standards (see Section 3). A key issue is always the data source of each database. The databases obtain their data from different sources. The ProBas data on milk come from either the Öko-Institut or the International Institute for Sustainability Analysis and Stretagy (IINAS). The Big Climate Database refers to the Danish LCA Food Database and some other publications. On the other hand, CarbonTag and ClimateHub calculate their LCA values for milk based on a large number of scientific publications. However, the sources are not always obvious in the other databases.

Many methodological assumptions influence the results of the milk LCA, so differences in LCA results cannot simply be inferred from the actual differences in GHG production. However, free databases rarely disclose all underlying assumptions. An exception is Agribalyse, where the assumptions underlying the calculations can be seen. All assumptions available for the LCA values are listed in Table 5. In databases available for purchase and data on demand, the assumptions are more often mentioned.

Dairy products are by-products (multi-output processes). As more than one product is produced in a process, the environmental impact of the multi-output process has to be shared between the products. For this purpose, there are methods of allocation and substitution. The choice of LCA method for co-products can have a major impact on the final result [126]. It is not clear in all free databases which LCA method was used for milk. There are two different methods to deal with multifunctional processes. In Agribalyse, the allocation to co-products is carried out using the biophysical allocation approach. ProBas uses the system extension method. It is possible that the higher values for ProBas are due to the method used. When looking at the ProBas values, it is also noticeable that the CO₂ footprints vary from year to year. As the CO₂ emissions in the different databases also come from different reference years, this may also be a reason for the variations in the values. In the Big Climate database, the lower CO₂ footprint of milk compared to other LCA studies is explained by the consistent LCA allocation between milk and meat products from dairy cows.

The one organic milk in Table 5 has a higher range and is included here for comparison only. When comparing organic and conventional milk, there are different statements about GHG emissions, regardless of whether the carbon footprint of organic milk is higher or not. For example, Cederberg and Mattsson [127] found a difference in GHG emissions between organic and conventional milk production, while another study found no difference between organic and conventional production systems in terms of GHG emissions per kg of milk.

For Kristensen et al., the difference between the average GHG emissions per kg milk from organic and conventional production was negligible [119]. De Boer [128] explains that the GWP of milk is mainly due to methane emissions. However, in organic milk production, CH₄ production is higher than in conventional farms due to the increased use of roughage and the lower average milk production per cow. Therefore, organic milk production can only achieve a lower GWP by reducing CO₂ and N₂O emissions. It is difficult to directly compare the results of different LCA studies. The absolute GWP differs widely between studies because of differences in the allocation or normative values used for CH₄ and N₂O emissions [128].

The level of processing of the milk varies between databases. It is not always specified whether the milk is fresh, ESL (extended shelf life), or UHT. In Table 5, UHT (ultra-high-temperature processing) milk types have lower carbon footprints compared to other comparable milk types in Europe with the same system boundary. This can be explained by the fact that UHT milk no longer needs to be cooled in the warehouse and at the supermarket. Although slightly more energy is required for processing, the elimination of cooling improves the carbon footprint of UHT milk compared to fresh milk, which requires cooling [129]. Meneses et al., in their study on the environmental assessment of milk, assumed a transport of 100 km and found only a small impact of transport on the LCA of milk. However, the impact of transport on the LCA of milk may be greater for longer distances [130]. The transport assumptions of a product from different LCA databases are often not visible and transparent. It is often unclear which type of truck transported the milk and how long the transport routes were from the farm to the dairy and from the dairy to the warehouse or retailer. Only some databases make the transport information visible. Probas, for example, shows transport routes in its milk data (Table 5). Agribalyse shows the calculation bases for transport in its methodology report. It is also possible to obtain detailed information on transport from commercial databases such as CarbonTag or the ESU World Food LCA Database, but this information has to be purchased. Even if transport is only a part of the total LCA result, it is always a factor for different LCA results for the same food item.

The electricity mix required to produce a product should always be considered as it affects LCA results. According to the ifeu, the electricity and heat requirements as well as packaging are the most important factors influencing the LCA of milk processing in the dairy factory [126].

Packaging is a similar factor to transport. Once more, an influence of the type of packaging on the environmental impact of milk and the global warming potential of milk has been demonstrated [130]. Bertolini et al. found that multilayer carton systems for milk packaging have a lower environmental impact than high-density polyethylene systems or polyethylene terephthalate [131]. However, free databases often do not provide information on the type of packaging used for milk. Of the free databases in Table 5, the ifeu indicates what type of packaging the milk is in, and the packaging information for Agribalyse milk, HDPE (high-density PE), can be found in the annexes of the Agribalyse methodological report. This means that packaging can also be considered as an uncertainty factor in the LCA of milk. Table 5 also shows that the CO₂ footprint of semi-skimmed milk without packaging is lower than that of semi-skimmed milk with packaging.

For semi-skimmed milk with system boundaries up to leaving the food producer or supermarket, the average CO₂e value is 1.10 ± 0.21 kg CO₂e/kg milk. When assessing the life cycle of milk, a distinction must be made between whole milk (typically 3.5% fat) and semi-skimmed milk (1.5% fat). Semi-skimmed milk also has a lower carbon footprint than whole milk in Table 5. This is because part of the cost of producing semi-skimmed milk is allocated separately to milk fat. This milk fat is further processed into other milk products, such as cream or butter [126].

The CO₂ footprint of whole milk for a global mix was added to Table 5 in order to be able to classify the CO₂ footprint of German milk compared to a global value. The global mix value from Poore and Nemecek [105] refers to an extensive meta-study with large differences between countries. Compared to the global mix value, the CO₂ footprint of German milk is comparatively low.

Table 6. Carbon footprints of beef products from selected databases.

Database	CO₂e/kg Beef	Description Beef: Name, System Boundary, Transport	Region	Year	Calculation Standard
Agribalyse version 3.1.1	34.34	roast beef, roasted, up to consumer	FR	2023	ISO 14040, LEAP, PEF
Agribalyse version 3.1.1	42.13	beef minced steak, 15% fat, cooked, up to consumer	FR	2023	ISO 14040, LEAP, PEF
BONSAI	53.50	beef processed (boneless), up to consumer	DE	2016	ISO 14040, ISO 14044
CarbonTag	26.56	beef average, up to supermarket	DE	2024	GHG Protocol, ISO 14064-1, ISO 14064-2, guidelines of the IPCC
ClimateHub (CarbonCloud)	20.27	minced beef, up to factory gate	DE	2024	ISO 14067, GHG protocol
	22.91	minced beef, up to store	SE
	39.15	beef, ribeye roast, boneless, up to factory gate	DE
	46.19	beef, ribeye roast, boneless, up to store	SE
	57.50	beef, tenderloin steak (filet mignon), up to factory gate	DE
	65.72	beef, tenderloin steak (filet mignon), up to store	SE
	31.10	beef average, up to supermarket	SE
ifeu	13.6	beef average, up to supermarket	DE	2019	ISO 14040, ISO 14044 ISO 14067
ifeu	21.7	beef organic, up to supermarket	DE	2019	ISO 14040, ISO 14044 ISO 14067
ProBas	26.0	beef, up to supermarket, transport 100 km	DE	2015	ISO 14040, ISO 14048
Sharp	34.04	beef liver, up to consumer	EU	2018	N/A
RISE food climate database	88	beef, bone free, uncooked, incl. land use change, primary production until processing, transport to Sweden included, packaging not included	sold in SE, produced in Brazil	2024	ISO 14040
RISE food climate database	28	beef, bone free, uncooked, primary production until processing, no transport from industry to wholesaler, packaging not included	SE	2024	ISO 14040
The Big Climate Database	100.08	beef T-bone steak, raw, up to supermarket	ES	2023	ISO 14040, ISO 14044
	56.18	beef rump, raw, up to supermarket	ES
	67.91	Roast beef sliced, up to supermarket	DK
	48.04	minced beef, 10–15% fat, raw, up to supermarket	DK
Poore and Nemecek suppl. material	99.5	bovine meat (beef herd), mean, up to supermarket	global	2018	ISO 14040
Poore and Nemecek suppl. material	33.3	bovine meat (dairy herd), mean, up to supermarket	global	2018	ISO 14040

The carbon footprint values of beef as displayed in Table 6 differ much more than those of milk. The values range from 13.60–100.08 kg CO₂e/kg beef, with an average value of 46.40 CO₂e/kg beef and a high standard deviation of ±23.20 kg CO₂e/kg beef. Even when looking only at the average beef values that are not related to a specific product such as steak, the values still differ between 13.60 and 99.5 kg CO₂e/kg beef. These wide ranges of carbon footprints of beef were also found in other studies [104,105,132]. For one, the beef products in Table 6 are in themselves significantly more differentiated products than the milk in Table 5. Table 6 contains more specific products such as T-bone steak or roast beef, compared to the relatively uniform milk in Table 5. The comparison of beef footprints from the databases evaluated is, therefore, not straightforward.

As expounded by Poore and Nemecek [76], the variation in impact among products is especially high in animal-based products, especially meat. Here, the highest share of the overall impact (>75%) occurs at the production, i.e., farm, stage. Here, different farming and production systems influence the carbon footprint of products [107,119,120,122,132], while, generally, the largest single share of the carbon footprint is caused by enteric fermentation [76]. The efficiency of the production system also has an impact on the carbon footprint of beef as the emissions are related to the amount of meat produced per unit of the reared cattle in the farms. The influencing factors are the weaning rate, as well as the age and carcass weight at slaughter [133]. The effect of the efficiency of production systems can also be seen when comparing the carbon footprints of conventional and organic beef (Table 6, ifeu values). Although both systems can show a wide variety of carbon footprints, organic beef often has higher carbon footprints due to a lower production efficiency and lower yields. The variation in footprint values is also high when comparing beef from dairy herds to beef from beef herds (Table 6, values of supplementary materials in [76]). This also highlights the influence of the production and the cattle-raising system on the carbon footprint [134]. However, the issue here is not the variation as such, which could be accounted for by adding information on the respective production system in carbon footprint databases. The issue is that, in most cases, information on production systems and system boundaries are not available in free databases, or the respective data from the region or system needed are not available. Additionally, the impact on the use of different footprinting methodologies on the footprint values themselves is unknown.

4.1.3. Primary Data from Producers

A total of six label issuers derive some or all of their data for life cycle assessments for climate labels or information for a sustainability label from primary data. These specific data mostly come from food production or the upstream supply chain. They can include data from agricultural production, transport, or energy used in processing (see Figure 2).

ClimatePartner from Munich, Germany (with the ClimatePartner—certified label) supports companies with its own cloud-based software to calculate corporate carbon footprints, which include Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, as well as product carbon footprints. Product carbon footprints take into account the entire life cycle of a product. The label is awarded following the funding of a carbon offset project. The projects are located in different regions of the world and include different carbon avoidance and reduction options. Projects are conducted in the area of nature-based solutions, such as forest protection, in the area of social impact, such as clean cook stoves, or in the area of renewable energy. ClimatePartner has developed its own database with its own datasets, supplemented with data from external databases such as Ecoinvent, Agribalyse, and others. A software network platform has been developed by ClimatePartner to provide users with carbon footprints. As most emissions occur within the supply chain, the emissions of suppliers are also recorded in order to achieve CO₂ reduction targets. With the Network Platform, ClimatePartner companies can collect supplier data on carbon emissions and have the option to collect and evaluate their suppliers’ emissions data [135].

Beelong’s LCAs are based on data from Agribalyse, the World Food Database, and Ecoinvent, as well as real food data collected in Switzerland. Examples of this specific data from Switzerland include the origin of ingredients, production methods, breeding programmes, cultivation methods, fishing techniques, distances travelled, and other data. The Beelong ECO-Score also takes into account biodiversity, animal welfare, and packaging. Beelong feeds these data into the Beelong database and the Beelong calculator [136].

Foundation Earth uses primary data provided directly by farms and factories. Where primary data cannot be collected, Foundation Earth uses secondary data from recognised databases (see Table 5 for the databases used) or so-called high-quality LCA research from third parties [137].

Another method is the initiative of business associations and companies that publish the Eco Score. On the one hand, information from the Agribalyse database is used. The product environmental footprint (PEF) impacts associated with production, processing, transport, and packaging are taken into account and rescaled to a score out of 100. On the other hand, other information on the negative or positive environmental impact is used. This includes information from the producer or food manufacturer, information on the product label, and additional quality criteria. These all provide information about the recyclability of packaging, the origin of ingredients, the seasonality of food, etc. to give bonus or penalty points in the scoring process. The total score out of 100 gives an Eco-Score from A to E [138].

While WASA uses primary and secondary data in addition to databases [139], Rewe has a different concept for its sustainability label Pro Planet. Rewe does not conduct a life cycle assessment for Pro Planet. Products that receive the Pro Planet label have been tested for their environmental and social sustainability, as well as increased animal welfare requirements. The label can be awarded by Rewe Group to own-brand products of Rewe, Penny, and toom in consultation with their Sustainability Advisory Board. Products and product groups are selected for the Pro Planet label if there are challenges in the supply chain in the sustainability complex of environment, human, and animal welfare and if Rewe Group has been able to implement effective measures for improvement. The first step in awarding the label is to research and analyse issues and measures for product groups. The measures are then concretised into requirements for the labelling of the products. Depending on the challenge in the supply chain, the actions can include a wide range of sustainability activities. For example, they may involve purchasing certified raw materials or implementing their own projects. The Sustainability Advisory Board then decides whether the planned measures are sufficient for a product or product group to be awarded the Pro Planet label [140].

4.1.4. Additional Data

Some organisations that issue labels carry out their own LCA using primary sources and a combination of primary sources and databases. One example is Foundation Earth, which employs in-house LCA experts to assess the environmental impact of food products and calculate the score. After working closely with the brands, the LCA experts map the supply chain. They then collect primary data or, if this is not possible, use data from databases or high-quality LCA research by third parties. If neither primary nor secondary data are available, proxy modelling is done to create a model of the product or process using similar secondary data that have already been collected. Finally, all information is used to calculate the impact. The results are fed into Foundation Earth’s assessment calculator to produce the eco-impact score [137].

Zukunftswerk eG uses various databases for its Climateline brand with the label “Klimaneutral Climateline” and performs its own in-house LCA calculations. Some Climateline customers can also calculate their own emissions using the CO₂ calculation tool [141].

Migros has launched M-Check, a sustainability scale for Migros private label products. Migros uses various databases for M-Check, as well as data from treeze, a sustainability company that offers the calculation of LCAs and carbon footprints as a service. Together with the life cycle assessment companies treeze and intep, products are classified and further validated by the myclimate foundation. For climate-relevant areas such as meat, specific carbon footprints have been created for individual products [142].

CarbonTag is a label and start-up that calculates the CO₂ emissions of food products for customers. CarbonTag has created its own database. In the calculations, each data point is individually researched and supported by a scientific source [114].

4.1.5. Other Sources

All data sources that could not be assigned to either the European food LCA databases or the primary sources are listed in Figure 2. In particular, this could include a database that was not created for food. It could also include sources that were indicated as used by the labels, but for which no information was available. The following data sources have been included here: GEMIS (Globales Emissions-System integrated Systeme), EPA, Ökobaudat (Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings), AIB, Ademe (The Fench Agency for Ecological Transition), FCID (Food Commodity Intake Database of the USA), GDB, Mondra (Platform for the exchange of LCA data in the food industry), treeze (Life Cycle Assessment consulting company), and Swiss Environment IOT.

5. Conclusions

There are currently many different labels and claims about the carbon or environmental footprint of food. All of them are based on different methodologies and data. This heterogeneity of approaches makes it difficult to (1) understand the label and (2) compare labelled products. This potentially undermines trust in the label, which is at odds with its primary goal of making food consumption more environmentally sustainable. Therefore, a first step should be to improve the general understanding of the differences in calculations caused by the use of different methodologies or calculation standards. As a second step, agreement should be reached on how food footprints are calculated so that these processes are harmonised at the country or EU level.

Second, harmonisation is also needed at the data level. As shown in this paper, the data used for carbon or environmental labelling today come from different sources and are of varying quality and accuracy. The most widely used data source for calculating footprints are LCA databases. However, these often do not explicitly state important assumptions and details of the calculations, such as transport modes and distances, electricity mix, feed composition, and others. Footprint values obtained from free LCA databases are, therefore, not easy to explain or understand. An exception is Agribalyse, which is transparent about all the methodological choices made in its calculations. While paid databases provide all these details for the product(s) commissioned, they represent a rather expensive way of calculating footprints.

Databases are also based on different data sources with varying data quality. The more primary data used in an LCA, the more accurate the results become. However, primary data must be representative of the whole product range if they are to be used to fill a database. A uniform, comprehensive database in Germany and Europe could be a useful starting point for the comparability of food products in terms of their ecological footprint. This database, which should include key environmental indicators, would contribute to the development of food sustainability policies and recommendations at the European and national levels [6]. In general, any footprint calculation and labelling need to take into account the complexity of the food system and, thus, the database used. The reported value must, therefore, be understood as a best estimate or approximation of the ‘real’ footprint at a given point in time [143]. This also needs to be communicated to consumers.

Further research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of the variation in environmental footprints of food products caused by applying different calculation methodologies versus the variations in footprint values that occur due to different production systems and processes within a product’s value chain. It would also be interesting to take a step further into the direction of the present paper and examine a larger number of products in the same way, while also taking a closer look at specific sources deposited in LCA databases for specific products. This could give a better impression on, for example, how many sources a ‘good enough’ database value needs to be based on as a minimum and which variation in values can be tolerated.

Given the urgency of transforming the food system, current labelling activities can be welcomed, even if approaches are still diverse and the impact on actual consumption is not yet clear. These activities, even if not yet perfect, contribute to an increased awareness of the issue and can be seen as a diverse field of (initial) use cases for environmental labelling. Experts, experiences, and best practices are developing mainly in the research and private sectors, which should be used by policy-makers to promote food eco-labelling in a more coordinated way. Actions taken from now on should involve all groups of actors—business/industry, farmers, policy makers, civil society, and consumers—and, in particular, target influential single actors in the food system to scale up change.

Author Contributions

Conceptualisation, methodology, and formal analysis, A.T. and K.G.; writing—original draft preparation, A.T. and K.G.; writing—review and editing, A.T.; project administration, A.T.; funding acquisition, A.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The project is supported by funds from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) based on a decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under the Research and Innovation Programme ‘Climate Protection in Agriculture’.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author due to data sharing restrictions in LCA databases.

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Marie von Meyer-Höfer, Yanne Goossens, Thomas Schmidt, and Martin Banse for the useful comments on and for editing an earlier draft of this manuscript. We are also thankful to Sandra Blaue for proofreading the manuscript. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their important comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Figure 2. Sources behind labels covered in this study. Source: authors’ own compilation.

Table 2. Political initiatives towards a sustainable food system on an international level.

Institution	Section	Initiative	Timeline
EU	European Commission	sustainable EU food system: sustainability labelling of food products	planned for third quarter 2023
		Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)	2023 onwards
		Green Taxonomy	2024 onwards
		Green Claims Directive	2026 onwards
		Farm Sustainability Data Network (FSDN)	2023 onwards
		New regulation on statistics on agricultural inputs and outputs (SAIO)	2025 onwards
	Joint Research Centre (JRC)	Development of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (EF) methods	2021 onwards
OECD	Food Chain Analysis Network	Measuring and communicating environmental impacts of food products	expert dialogue started in 2023
UN	UNEP	UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative: Establishing a comprehensive, consistent, and global Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method to assess the life cycle impacts of products and services on human health, ecosystem, and natural resources	2020 onwards
UN	FAO (with WHO)	Guiding principles on Sustainable healthy diets	2019

Source: authors’ compilation.

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Trebbin, A.; Geburt, K. Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display. Sustainability 2024, 16, 10876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su162410876

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Trebbin A, Geburt K. Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display. Sustainability. 2024; 16(24):10876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su162410876

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Trebbin, Anika, and Katrin Geburt. 2024. "Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display" Sustainability 16, no. 24: 10876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su162410876

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Trebbin, A., & Geburt, K. (2024). Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display. Sustainability, 16(24), 10876. https://doi.org/10.3390/su162410876

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Carbon and Environmental Labelling of Food Products: Insights into the Data on Display

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Framing the Context

3. Materials and Methods

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Data Sources

4.1.1. Databases

4.1.2. Case Studies: Milk and Beef

4.1.3. Primary Data from Producers

4.1.4. Additional Data

4.1.5. Other Sources

5. Conclusions

Author Contributions

Funding

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed Consent Statement

Data Availability Statement

Acknowledgments

Conflicts of Interest

References

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