A lack of harmonisation in methodologies and data means eco-labels may simply be ‘legitimising business as usual’, according to critics. Nick Hughes reports.
Food eco-labels in their current form are not fit for purpose. That was the blunt conclusion of new research into the potential for eco-labels to achieve national environmental targets and support the transition to higher farming standards.
Commissioned by Clear (the consortium for labelling for the environment, animal welfare and regenerative farming) and carried out by researchers from the University of Hertfordshire, the review of ten existing eco-label schemes – comprising five eco-rating schemes and five farm assurance schemes – found a plethora of issues with “extensive potential to mislead consumers”.
The assessment of eco-rating schemes from Eco-Score, Foodsteps, Foundation Earth, IGD and Planet-Score highlighted a range of limitations including a lack of standardised methodologies, over-reliance on modelled (secondary) rather than supply chain specific data, and limited consideration of impacts such as biodiversity, soil health and water quality.
Farm assurance schemes from A Greener World, Fair to Nature, Leaf Marque, Pasture for Life and the Soil Association were found by comparison to use more primary data and have greater coverage of environmental impacts but were seen as too reliant on farming practices alone rather than measurable environmental outcomes.
In a forthright statement, Catherine Chong, ESG and engagement lead for Clear, said the review should act as a wake-up call. “People have no idea that accessing an eco-label is like playing roulette. The room for food eco-labels to falsely claim environmental benefits and underplay or conceal the environmental harms is too high. It risks legitimising business as usual.”
Clear wants to see the validity and integrity of eco-labelling strengthened so that the information presented to stakeholders reflects the actual environmental performance of the method of production. It is also calling for the development of regulatory frameworks that prevent misleading claims and ensure methodological transparency.
Lost momentum
Eco-rating scheme owners are used to fielding criticism over the rigour behind their data; yet the fact such concerns are still being raised several years on from the first wave of consumer-facing labelling trials underscores the ongoing challenge in aggregating environmental impacts into a single eco-rating or score – and doing so in a way that supports food system sustainability.
During a launch event to present the findings of the report it was hard to escape the conclusion that eco-labels have lost some of their early momentum. IGD’s attempt to create a harmonised eco-labelling scheme for UK food and drink businesses has not yet progressed beyond the testing phase, while another leading scheme by Foundation Earth has been integrated into EIT Food, the innovation community funded by the EU.
Political interest in the ability of eco-labels to nudge consumers towards more sustainable choices also appears to have cooled. The UK Government’s 2022 food strategy pledged to “develop a mandatory methodology that must be used by those who want to produce eco-labels or make claims about the sustainability of their products”. There was even talk of a government-led unified scheme. Yet three years on, work to develop such a methodology has slipped off the agenda. Defra’s Food Data Transparency Partnership eco-working group is still meeting under the new Labour government, but its work is now focused on developing standardised product level footprints for food and drink items.
In the out of home sector the likes of Wahaca, Azzurri Group, Peach Pubs and Just Eat have dabbled with carbon labelling but you still won’t find too many menus featuring environmental scores ‘out in the wild’. That’s not to say the data generated isn’t being poured over by caterers and restaurants –as detailed in Footprint Intelligence’s newly published net-zero report – but it is largely being used to drive reformulation of menus back of house rather than put the onus on the customer to make a more sustainable choice. The evidence for using environmental data as a key lever for shifting the dial on sustainable dietary choices was “always quite limited”, said Anya Doherty, founder and managing director of Foodsteps (the report sponsor).
Indeed, research has yet to provide robust evidence that eco-labels drive a meaningful change in purchasing habits. A study published in January analysed the total environmental impact of hot meals sold over a 6-week period within 54 worksite cafeterias operated by a single nationwide catering provider between January and April 2022. The results showed no evidence that the presence of an eco-label changed people’s purchasing behaviours.
Unintended consequences
Yet the scepticism expressed by Clear is altogether more fundamental: does the data generated by these schemes really present us with the more sustainable choice in the round?
During a panel discussion at the report’s launch, experts raised a series of concerns around the limitations and potential unintended consequences of reducing sustainability to a single score based on imperfect data. Jimmy Woodrow, chief executive of Pasture for Life and co-founder of Clear, noted how some supermarkets are lowering slaughter ages for livestock as a way to score more positively [on carbon for example] within current data frameworks. Lee Holstock, head of regulatory and trade affairs at Soil Association Certification, expressed concern over some of the proxies being used to rate biodiversity, while Chong criticised a lack of methodological and data transparency behind scoring schemes.
Scheme holders contend that we can’t put sustainability efforts on hold while we wait for perfect data (that may never arrive). In Footprint’s net-zero report, Doherty cautioned that getting bogged down in the data can be a distraction. “The data only needs to be good enough to serve the purpose you need it for – so decarbonisation of the food system over the next five years. And there are some pretty well evidenced and simple things we can do to achieve that.”
It’s clear too that data and methodologies are in a constant state of development and improvement. One of the authors of the Clear study, John Tzilivakis, noted how data platforms are getting better at plugging existing gaps in secondary data and integrating more primary data from farms into their models. Technology is also enabling the capture of more primary data using tools like drones, direct monitoring cameras and bioacoustics monitoring for biodiversity.
Nutrition question
One question that isn’t addressed in the Clear report is how eco-labels should interact with nutritional labelling. For experts working at the intersection of healthy and sustainable diets, this is currently a key missing piece of the jigsaw and one that should be a priority for future research.
Ali Morpeth, co-founder of the consultancy Planeatry Alliance, says there is still a tendency for work on nutrition and sustainability to happen in silos and suggests that if the purpose of environmental labelling is ultimately to be customer facing we need to stop thinking about it in isolation.
“We have good learnings from the implementation of mandatory and voluntary nutrition labelling schemes. Sharing these during the development of environmental scoring systems would help with developing methodologies and implementation,” Morpeth explains.
She adds that “if the end goal is for a front-of-pack ‘master label’ we need trials that test environmental and health outcomes and help us understand the likely benefits and trade-offs at a product level”.
That has the potential to add even greater complexity to the already fiendishly difficult task of communicating to the public accurate, accessible information on a product or dish’s impact in a way that supports a just, sustainable agricultural transition.
On the power of labels to move the needle on sustainable diets, there’s little sign we’re close to cracking the code.
I speak on behalf of the UK Representative and Advocacy Group for Planet Score, one of the labels featured in the CLEAR report. We reached out numerous times to CLEAR (including through 3 conference calls)to ask them to engage purposefully and intelligently with Planet Score, both before and after the report was issued. This they refused to do time and time again. We are also in regular contact with Lee Holdstock and one of his research colleagues at the Soil Association – who participated in a full day overview of Planet Score and other meetings.
The authors of the report insisted to us that their research was based on “what you can see on the website” so we’re not open to corrections. This isn’t really a research methodology and has led to very simple and blatant errors. It’s a shame because we absolutely agree with the basic premises and the agroecological vision that CLEAR proposes. In particular 1. that LCA and PEF are inadequate tools for analysing food and agriculture. 2. (Implicitly) the IGD which represents big food interest is NOT the right entity to drive, convene and establish such a scheme, it should be in the hands of public interest/third sector bodies. 3. the only possible architecture for a responsible eco-labelling scheme is a hybrid system using proxies and farm data where available.
This Planet Score does, it has also integrated a biodiversity indicator, one of the most egregarious lapses in the LCA/PEF toolkit and, very important and highlighted to us by the then junior minister at DEFRA, accounts for inter-category comparisons (carrot versus carrot, not just carrot versus beef in basic terms) (the IGD scheme doesn’t) in a simple, consumer friendly and ecologically meaningful way. In practical terms CLEAR’s rating system was just plain stupid: Planet Score will take into account other certifications, from organic through to LEAF so it should rate at least equal to these schemes in the “evaluation” boxes built by the authors.
There is a lot more I could say but I will leave it to two final comments. First we agree the Planet Score website is not fit for purpose and Planet Score is addressing this lapse. There are practical reasons but it is a serious job that needs doing. I’m happy to update you when the new site is live. Second in a personal capacity, I want to comment on a weird form of British exceptionalism which I noted also with the IGD.
Watching CLEAR with its earnest deliberation is like watching an old black and white Ealing comedy. A mere 38 miles from Dover is a country which has a decades old Ministry for Ecological Transition, called ADEME, scientists, researchers, NGO’s and experts who have been debating and arguing about this for decades, a public, open, scientifically constructed, owned by government PEF food database called Agrybalyse (we have nothing of the kind in the UK, just a lot of non transparent privately sourced databases) and updated regularly (so the best starting point even if you are weary of LCA methodology).
Furthermore Planet Score has been accepted by numerous actors in the food space, big and small, retail and brands, to show both good and poor results, it’s used by farmers to compare at field level environmental performance, it has received blessings of sorts from various government bodies, including recently from the Competition authority in France, it engages regularly with Brussels and is one of the lead organisations pushing for a rethink of the PEF system which in effect Brussels itself invented, it has widespread NGO and expert support, including from the equivalent of WHICH CONSUMER, that has now rolled it out on an app available free to consumers, WWF, Compassion in World Farming and many smaller agroecological players.
You would have thought that CLEAR, the IGD, the Soil Association would all be bending over backwards to find out more, sending their experts to France to gather information and see how this ready made system could be brought across that 38 miles of sea. Instead we get an Ealing black and white comedy where well meaning chaps and lasses in tweed go bumbling around in a pleasant British suburb!
Anyone wanting to know more, please DO reach out to us. If there is sufficient interest we are ready to organise an in depth Planet Score conference here in the UK.
Thanks Charles. I’ve sent you a note.