UK supermarket chain Tesco has announced to drop labeling of all its products with carbon footprint, a few years after promising to label all 70,000 of its products. The chain will now phase out the label, co-developed with the UK-based Carbon Trust, after using it on just 500 products and is considering alternatives to replace it.
According to Tesco's analysis, calculation of each product's carbon footprint is difficult and would take a longer period to finish across the product line.
A Tesco spokeswoman said the supermarket was phasing out the labels, but it still wanted to provide carbon information on products.
The chain will continue to use the Carbon Trust label on a wide range of approved products and keep asking its customers what information they would find most useful.
The carbon footprint logo has been developed by the Carbon Trust together with companies including Tesco. More than 100 companies have adopted the carbon label in 22 countries and the annual sales value of goods carrying the label was £3bn.
Dyson, the independent electrical goods company; Kingsmill, the bread-maker; and Morphy Richards, household appliances maker are the other groups to have adopted the carbon footprint label.
The carbon reduction scheme required embossed products with the carbon footprint logo, and displaying information on a product's label of its individual carbon footprint
