Oatly is calling for all food and drink companies to publish the climate footprint of products to give consumers greater transparency of the environmental impact of their shopping baskets.
The plant-based drink brand has published a ‘Grey Paper’ aimed at making the case for mandatory climate labelling, arguing that there is public support for the cause as the food system currently equate to 35% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions.
New research has found that 62% of UK consumers are in favour of a policy to introduce carbon labelling on food and drink products and 55% think companies should be obliged to publish that information.
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Oatly UK general manager, Bryan Carroll, said: “The food and drink we consume is responsible for a third of total UK emissions. Scientists, including the UK government’s own Climate Change Committee, are clear that those emissions must urgently come down and that consumer behaviour change is a necessary part of that.
“Our view is that it’s unreasonable to expect this to happen when consumers are not being given the information they need to make informed choices. Given the urgency of our climate challenge, we believe it should be as easy for shoppers to find the climate impact of what they’re buying, as it is to find its price tag.”
This comes as the government has created the first Food Data Transparency Partnership which is exploring possible climate labelling policies for food and drink.
As part of the campaign, Oatly – which has been publishing the climate impact data of its products on-pack in the UK since 2019 – is cautioning against inadequate outcomes and looking to share its own experiences of climate labelling with policy-makers and industry.
Carroll added: “We’ve published a ‘grey paper’ because climate labelling isn’t a black and white issue where certain foods are good and others are not. This is about giving consumers the freedom to make informed choices about what they’re buying and how it impacts the planet – from grower to grocer.”
