Carboon Footprint Labels on products. Good for CRAG footprints?

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Cool

SO if we assume footprint of average food consumed is double its weight and the average persons weekly shop weighs 20kg:

2 * 20 = 40kg CO2
40 * 52 weeks = 2080kg CO2

Therefore a very very rough estimate of the average persons food footprint is 2 tonnes per year ?

Seems in the ball park. No flamnes for the outragous assumptions please!

Simon

CRAGger Chiswick and West London Peckham

Last Thursday/Friday’s BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Costing the Earth’ discussed food labelling, touching on the potential compromises between carbon footprint, animal welfare, organic & fair trade aspects.

Web link (includes link for streaming, will only work until next episode is broadcast on Thursday)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml?focuswin

Simon, Brentford – http://www.pedalpa.org.uk

Peckham Anna

website team CRAGger Peckham

You and Yours normally complain about stuff – that’s their function – but the comments by the spokeswoman from the National Consumer Council and various members of the public on Y&Y are relevant and illuminating I think:

• what is a gram of CO2? – If you don’t know what you’re aiming at or what would be fair – say, 1 tonne total per person per anum max – but just have a vague idea that you need to “do your [unspecified] bit”, how can you understand this? This shows another vital benefit of CRAGs!

• does a low CO2e ratiing conflict with other sustainability metrics e.g. embedded water, fairtrade? – This surely arises from a failure to appreciate the urgency of climate change over everything else.

One of the criticisms that I have of this scheme is that a grand total by itself isn’t very informative. The director of the Carbon Trust was also on You and Yours talking about the Walkers’ Crisps experience – embedded carbon from transporting the spuds was only 1% of total CO2e, but embedded carbon from the fertilizers used to grow the spuds was 13% or 30% [couldn’t quite hear on podcast]. We need to understand not just what the total is, but where it comes from, so that we can all see what sorts of processes need to change.

A good start, if woefully late, nonetheless. Peckham CRAG are thinking of using this info in various activities at our stalls at fairs in future – e.g. guess the lifetime CO2e in this X, as a fun way to get people to engage with the issues.

Best wishes

Anna

andy_ross

website team CRAGger Glasgow Leamington

Tesco do not seem to be pushing this very hard on their website. Carbon labelling on 70,000 products (see Telegraph article) seems to have reduced to 4: potatoes, orange juice, washing detergent and light bulbs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/27/cntesc…

http://www.tesco.com/greenerliving/cutting_carbon_footprints/carbon_labe…

I visited the folks this weekend and checked Mum’s Tesco orange juice carton. No sign of any carbon labelling.

Has anyone else seen any?

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

I agree with her, I think it is too complicated. As Anna says, what does 120g for a packet of crisps mean? I don’t have a clue whether it’s any good or bad, and neither will other shoppers. Imo, this will only become useful for CRAGgers once you get a total on your receipt, and for less keen folk, a running carbon total on your store card. This is a start towards that goal, but given the expense of auditing, we could be waiting a long time.

It may be better to give a general indication of ghg emissions from different groups of food (eg. pulses, cereals, meat, fish) to encourage shoppers to consider the overall balance of their diet, rather than this type of micro-information.

Zaria

CRAGger Peckham

I was discussing CRAG concepts in the pub with a friend the other eve, and she said how useful it would be to know the approximate carbon cost of such things as an evening in the pub. My argument that it’s too difficult to calculate such things to make any sense was rebutted with a very good one: an approximation of averages comes nonetheless to a number which can be fitted into a concept, ie. macro-behaviour within your reasonable carbon limits as defined by averages and overall calculations. It’s useful to have numbers to think about things.

Surely the ‘average 5 tonnes’ and then ’3 tonnes’ are meaninglessly approximate, but their simplicity makes us able to understand them in the vast, complex, frightening concept of climate change, and that simple belief in a number makes us able to motivate ourselves to change our lifestyles and influence others to do the same (btw, clever ‘bovmentioned friend won’t join CRAGs in a million years, but has voluntarily stopped using her hairdryer, unprompted but inspired by me and CRAGs).

Personally I am dangerously innumerate: numbers related to climate change are usually off my scale of understanding, but the CRAGS numbers are really useful to me in understanding and then explaining to others what our lifestyles mean in relation to global climate change. This is invaluable. I think some approximate and micro carbon-accounting of food and other things would be really useful to the CRAG movement.

Also: Please, I need a reference for the ‘5’ tonnes. Defra? Mayer Hilman?

Zaria Greenhill

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

Well, you’re right we use “micro” information all the time with money. I suppose the problem here is lack of context (individual prices need to be related to the overall carbon spend on food) and these four prices being so isolated. But these problems can be fixed.

The average for 2003 is 5.4tCO2 and is from Mayer Hillman. See the Footprinting page.

shane

CRAGger Bedford

I’m very interested in this thread as adding materials into carbon footprinting is somewhat of complicated holy grail of household carbon accounting. I’m involved a community level carbon audit and we’ve now got 2 Msc students working with us and we’re investigating the possibility of getting phd student focusing on developing a meaningful methodology for incorporating material related carbon from a consumer level.

This is our pitch for a phd student from the University of Cranfield, who have done a lot of Live Cycle Assessment and embedded carbon studies;
The Proposal is to carbon footprint households in Castle Ward, a 2000-house community. Prevailing methodologies for calculating a household’s carbon footprint generally includes direct emissions from transport and home energy. Approximately 30% of a UK citizen’s co2e emissions come from emissions embodied in the material we consume. However, this far more complex area of calculation is omitted in all prevailing household carbon calculators.

With support from the Mayor of Bedford Frank Branston, a large group of volunteers are being recruited and will be visiting all of the 2000 houses in Castle Ward with a door-to-door survey. The aim is to collect carbon footprint related data on over 30% of the houses. The survey will include materials related questions.

The methodology, boundaries and conversion factors to be used for calculating transport and home energy, are those set out in the DEFRA “act on co2” calculator, one of the most accurate and credible calculators developed to date. However there are no credible and recognised methodologies for incorporating material related co2.

The aim is to provide an accurate yet complete understanding of a communities’ carbon footprint including emissions embodied in the materials consumed. By surveying the houses, a bottom up approach will be used to account for embodied emissions, rather than the current norm of applying national statistics and generalisations.

By designing and testing questions sets, proxies and conversion factors, the proposed research also aims to address the lack of methodology suited to accounting for embodied energy in materials consumed by UK citizens.

This study also aims to bring together information from diverse strands of topical research on areas such as “Product Carbon Labelling” and “Personal Carbon Quotas” and inform the debate into calculate the complete carbon footprint of a household.

this thread has been a great insight.
thanks
shane

tomhitchman

CRAGger Islington

“It may be better to give a general indication of ghg emissions from different groups of food (eg pluses, cerals, meat, fish)”, well said David. This is the only realistic expectation.

I saw a couple of wonderful hand scribed drawings depicting the various inputs required for a normal tea (brown, british rail) verses a local tea from the garden some time ago on a permaculture intro weekend, from Graham Burnett of spiral seed. Astonishingly simple method to think about all the processes involved from planting to harvesting, packing, transportation, sales etc on one hand and the other going into the garden picking stuff then boiling water. The only common thing on both was boiling the water. One side very intensive and complex and very outside our own personal responsibility and the other much less so.

It would be a fascinating excerise to do this in a group of a couple of subsitute products say beans and meat. Refinements could be done with local varieties, organics, etc. The complexities would become apparent and also the energy, and hence emissions, could be identified too. This broad common sense analysis could get us a long and useful way without the need for the mico analysis appearing on our id cards!

shane

CRAGger Bedford

Here’s a list of categories that could be used for calculating the co2 from material flows at a household consumer level. any thoughts welcome;

food and drink

Drinks (alcoholic)
Drinks (non-alcoholic)
Meat, fish, poultry & Meat products
Bread & cakes
Diary Products
Fruit & vegetables
Confectionery
Other (e.g. cleaning products, bric a brac)

Other non food main categories

Clothes
White and brown goods
Furniture
Cars
DIY/construction material
Electrical (TV’s computers etc)

Different material categories can then be overlayed with other key co2 influencers, e.g.

How Local (food miles)
How processed and packaged
How much fertelizer/pestersides
How much is composted or recycled
How much is purchased second hand or new

Shane

Josiah

Hi Shane,

Your list seems pretty sound.

The footprinting process (whether ecological, carbon, water or whatever) is fraught with difficulties and I suppose the challenge is to hold peoples’ attention for long enough to gather enough information to create something meaningful and I suppose in the case of most initiatives ‘meaningful’ is a baseline from which work in the community starts – it is (obviously) not an absolute measure of a community or households carbon footprint. Here in Suffolk we’re trying to develop a similar household survey, I’d be interested to know how yours shapes up.

Your list does a good job of including proxies for most aspects of everyday life (the challenge is the research and maths – adding values / weighting them!). Certainly your work will make a refreshing change from the myriad of on-line calculators based on the simplistic AMEE methodology which contains no questions on domestic consumption – food, clothing etc. or on the three Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle which you include) as the former are areas that make up a significant part of our carbon footprint (at least a third probably more – food alone is estimated to be 23% by the WWF) and the latter offer mechanisms for reduction that communities and individuals are well placed to achieve.

I fully appreciate that the aim of calculators based on AMEE (like ACT on CO2) is to focus on home energy budgets and personal transport – which could represent quick wins, but as we know some fundamental cultural changes are going to be required if even the most conservative estimates of the impacts of climate change and coming energy deficits are borne out. These will require changes in patterns of production, distribution and consumption as well as significant changes in social relations. Installing a new boiler, putting more insulation in the roof and buying new kitchen appliances just won’t be enough; I’m sure you’ll agree that we need to be encouraging people to think and act differently in all aspects of their lives.

Hmm this posting has ended up being a bit of a rant about AMEE. I think it is just the frustration at being a small community group trying to take some measurements on which to base action and finding that most of the pre-existing calculators are pretty useless…

More generally what about other GHGs? I know this site is about carbon and that CO2 is currently (wait for those methane sinks to vent..) the biggest threat in relation to climate change but I’m increasingly finding myself concerned about other emissions and the potential for unintended consequences that focusing on one area (CO2) tends to have. I’ve read that nitrous oxide is 300 times more powerful than CO2, methane 20 times more potent (but importantly only persists in the atmosphere for around 20 years, so a big reduction now could make a real difference – by contrast CO2 will be about for 1000s of years). Both the latter are powerful greenhouse gases that man produces in large volumes, chlorofluorocarbons appear to be even more powerful – 5000 to 14000 times more potent than CO2, are 100% man-made but thankfully are far less common than the other two! Any of you have any views on this? (perhaps I’ll find some if I search around, but it all seems to be CO2 (sometimes CO2e); CH4 hardly gets a look in!)

As to carbon labeling – it’s CSR nonsense and I doubt that any business will be able to develop a really meaningful system and apply it to all their products. A partial, poorly regulated, corporate labeling system would be a disaster and set back the work GRAGs and others are doing. Sure, there needs to be information, but there are other, simpler, ways of doing it: Buy locally and seasonally, do not buy produce grown in heated glass-houses (even those useing ‘waste’ heat), buy organic, never buy airfreighted food, avoid frozen foods, don’t buy bottled water, only buy extensively reared meat that has been fed minimal amounts of grain (if you must buy meat), cut down (or out) dairy products. Do this and enjoy eating real food – avoid adding up spurious numbers on plastic packaging in Tesco’s – in fact you’ll find yourself less reliant on supermarkets and saving money too.

JM

shane

CRAGger Bedford

Hi JM

The original post asks if carbon labelling is good for CRAG’ers and i think it is for all it’s flaws it will highlight some hot spots force debates and discussions and increase carbon literacy no end. but until we have labels on everything, including leisure activities i think we are right in trying to fill the gap in calculating the climate impacts of our consumption.

you said;

>I’d be interested to know how yours shapes up.

so far we’ve got about 70 surveys in and about 50% of them have ticked a box saying they’d be interested in more detailed monitoring and this will involve the follow up survey about material consumption. It has been almost impossible to do it all in one hit by adding the material survey onto the transport and home energy survey, which takes about 15 mins and the materials tacking over 10mins, its just been too long for most interviewees.
>
>Your list does a good job of including proxies for most aspects of everyday life (the challenge is the research and maths – adding >values / weighting them!)

Below i’ve cut and paste the final questionnaire that we’re using. We largely had to decide between two approaches, either ask questions that people could answer “easily” and use leaping assumptions and proxies (and large possibilities for mistakes in our calculations) to reach a value/unit that can be converted into carbon, or use questions that give us answers in kg or ltrs or units that are really difficult for people to answer but then we’re able to answer with more direct conversion factor rather than adding proxies. This then leaves just as large room for error but it’s the user who may make the error by guessing their consumption wrong. We chose the later and tried to offer prompts about average consumption to make it easier (not lead) to answer. We chose the later largely because we’ve been looking at it from an academic point of view as we’re working with Cranfield University and it was difficult to justify many of our assumptions and proxies for the former. This may be the wrong way round but it also forces the user to become more literate about their consumption patterns and will provide data that will able support better assumptions so that we can use easier questions in the future.

>More generally what about other GHGs?

Fundamentally what we’ve trying to do is understand the most accurate picture of material flows or material balance of a household/community. This can then be translated into carbn, GHG’s or ecological footprint. Getting a grasp of these material flows is the first step and if we can do that we can wait for carbon and GHG conversion science to evolve and apply better conversion calculations as they appear.

The questionnaire is here, apologies for the deformatting i can email anyone the word document if desired.

Materials
Day to day consumption

Water How much water does your household consume per week?
Example; usually ranging from 560 to 1680 liters per person per week
Average unmetered = 1050ltrs per person per week
Average metered = 950ltrs per person per week
Ltrs/p/w

Shopping How many kilos of shopping do you buy each week for your household?
Example an average carrier bag of shopping weighs 4kg approximately
Kg/w

What percentage of the above wieght is the following? (Answers should add up to 100%)
Shopping category Percentage
Basic carbohydrate food; Pasta, rice, pizza, home-made cakes & biscuits %
Breakfast cereals and bread, already made cakes and biscuits %
Root vegetables %
Other vegetables %
Top fruit (apple, pear) %
Berries %
Dairy products %
Fresh Meat %
Fresh Fish and other basic protein foods %
Drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) %
Mixed and processed products, snack, prepared meals etc %

What percentage of the food and drink that you buy is raw and fresh?
%

What percentage of the food and drink that you buy is farmed locally and in season? (Within 100 miles)
%

What percentage of the food and drink that you buy is organic? %

What percentage of your total food and drink is homegrown?
%

What percentage of your homegrown food and drink is grown using native species?
%

Waste and recycling Roughly how much waste do you recycle, compost and landfill each week? Use the examples on the right if you’re not sure.
Waste type Kg per week Examples (averages)
Rubbish to landfill Kg/w A carrier bag of rubbish = 2kg,
A bin bag of rubbish = 8kg and
A full wheelie bin = 30kg
Food waste composted Kg/w Kitchen compost container = 2.5kg
Garden waste composted Kg/w Green waste bag = 2.5kg
Plastic bottles/containers recycled Kg/w 2 ltr bottle = 0.05kg
Cans recycled Kg/w Aluminium can = 0.016kg
Newspapers/magazines recycled Kg/w News paper = 0.2kg
Boxes recycled Kg/w Cereal box = 0.075
Glass bottles/jars recycled Kg/w 750ml wine bottle = 0.2kg

Eating out How often do people in your household eat or drink out? Give details for the whole family’s weekly activities.
Activity Frequency
Snacks Per week
Breakfast Per week
Lunch Per week
Evening meal Per week
Pub drink Per week

One off and large goods consumption

Vehicles Have any members of your household bought any domestic vehicles (cars, motorbike or vans) in the last 12 months?
Yes No

If yes, please list and give details below.
Vehicle type New or used Size (circle one answer)
1. New Used Small Standard Large
2. New Used Small Standard Large
3. New Used Small Standard Large
4. New Used Small Standard Large

Construction Was the house you’re living in built within the last 12 months? Or have you had any extensions or garages built in the last 12 months?
Yes No

If yes, how many meter squared of internal floor space has been built? And was it built out of new or used materials? Building type Quantity New or used 1. m2 New Used 2. m2 3. m2 4. m2

Renovations, decorating and landscaping Have any members of you household decorated or landscaped your house or garden in the last 12 months?
Yes No

If yes, please circle the items that you have bought, and give details.
Items Quantity New or used Size (circle one answer)
Radiators Units New Used Small Standard Large
Kitchen sink Units New Used Small Standard Large
Kitchen surfaces Units New Used Small Standard Large
Kitchen cupboards Units New Used Small Standard Large
Bath Units New Used Small Standard Large
Toilet Units New Used Small Standard Large
Bathroom sink Units New Used Small Standard Large
Boiler Units New Used Small Standard Large
Windows Units New Used Small Standard Large
Plants Units N/A Small Standard Large
Carpets m2 New Used Not Applicable
Floor tiles m2 New Used Not Applicable
Wood floor m2 New Used Not Applicable
Laminate floor m2 New Used Not Applicable
Paint m2 New Used Not Applicable
Wall tiles m2 New Used Not Applicable
Wallpaper m2 New Used Not Applicable
Roof tiles m2 New Used Not Applicable
Insulation m2 New Used Not Applicable
Solar hot water panels m2 New Used Not Applicable
Solar PV m2 New Used Not Applicable
Lawn (re-turf) m2 New Used Not Applicable
Patio or drive m2 New Used Not Applicable
Shed m2 New Used Not Applicable
Garden fence m2 New Used Not Applicable
Garden wall m2 New Used Not Applicable
Green/natural Roof m2 New Used Not Applicable
Electrical wiring m2 N/A Not Applicable

Furniture, white goods or electrical items
Have any members of your household bought any furniture, white goods or electrical items for your home in the last 12 months?
Yes No

If yes, please circle the items that you have bought and give details.
Items Quantity New or used Size (circle one answer)
TV New Used Small Standard Large
DVD player New Used Small Standard Large
Computer New Used Small Standard Large
Laptop New Used Small Standard Large
Games console New Used Small Standard Large
Stereo New Used Small Standard Large
Sofa New Used Small Standard Large
Chair (includes garden) New Used Small Standard Large
Table (includes garden) New Used Small Standard Large
Bed New Used Small Standard Large
Cupboard/wardrobe New Used Small Standard Large
Chest of draws New Used Small Standard Large
Fridge/freezer New Used Small Standard Large
Cooker New Used Small Standard Large
Microwave New Used Small Standard Large
Washing machine New Used Small Standard Large
Dryer New Used Small Standard Large
Dishwasher New Used Small Standard Large
Toaster/kettle/grill etc New Used Small Standard Large
Lawn mower New Used Small Standard Large

Josiah

Much appreciated Shane,

It would be useful if you were able to email over a word version of your questions, I’d like to take it along to our next meeting in a couple of weeks time; josiahmeldrum[at]gmail.com

I live in Bungay (Suffolk) and the group I’m involved in is working toward Transition Town status, but one of the things that first brought us together (a few moths ago) was the idea of some sort of Carbon budget for the town (4000 people) and a set of targets. Obviously the CRAG concept is very appealing, but we don’t expect everyone to be that committed (to start with) so the plan has been to do a large scale very simple survey to set an approximate baseline. This is really about awareness raising and we hope that it will get us lots of media attention locally and help us to recruit a couple of hundred representative households (we may tackle schools, businesses and other organisations later) to do more detailed surveys and become part of a monitoring process. We’d then like to repeat the broad brush survey at the end of next year and present the findings – we hope to be able to demonstrate that those involved in the monitoring will have made significant carbon cuts and saved quite a bit of money, thus encouraging others to sign up… at which point it is hoped that the initiative will have a life of its own in the Town so further large scale surveys will be less important.

The Broads Authority (we’re just in the National Park) have shown interest in funding it – climate change will have a big impact around here as sea levels rise! and it is possible that the University of East Anglia will support the research (through CRED probably).

Clearly it is a massive task. The first survey alone (4000 households) will cost around 6k and that includes a lot of voluntary time, we hope to carry it out this autumn.

Our big survey will be based on one of the usual calculators – we don’t want to ask people questions they can’t answer, with a few additional questions about consumption: perhaps just food and drink and clothes, with associated Qs about recycling and re-use. For the more detailed monitoring a more nuanced approach that includes material flows would be much more interesting and useful – so thanks for your input.

In my professional life (I work for an organic fruit and vegetable producers co-op) I spent some time three or four years ago trying to come up with a label that included food miles, carbon values and embedded water. I worked with the University of East Anglia and someone on the fresh water team at WWF, we developed a clear label and look-up system quickly, but as we began the actually research it became obvious that the task was impossible (or at least well beyond our means) the science simply isn’t there – in the end farming systems are to heterogeneous and we felt that averages were not appropriate or adequate; for example one Spanish carrot grower might manage water very differently to another, so it seemed unreasonable to come up with a Spanish or even Andalusian proxy figure.

Anyway, before I wander off the point too much,

Thanks again,

Josiah

shane

CRAGger Bedford

I’ll respond briefly here because we’re drifting off topic, but your carbon footprinting survey sounds almost word for word what we’re doing right now, so i’d love to hook up with and exchange experiences. have you heard of www.CutYourCarbon.org.uk? they’re from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) and have reworked the act on co2 calculator, so that all surveys completed can be attributed to a community. As well as adding provisions for including businesses and street lights etc so that you can accumulate the data into a community footprint. anyway i’ll email you a paper based version of the transport, home energy and materials questionnaires.

shane

shane

CRAGger Bedford

The Publicly Available Standard (PAS) 2050 Measuring the embodied greenhouse gas emissions in products and services
http://www.bsi-global.com/en/Standards-and-Publications/How-we-can-help-...

This document is likely to underpin many if not all UK product and service carbon labels but will likely cause double counting if coupled with existing transport and home energy calculators.

Its programed to be launched this month. It’s been developed by the British Standards Institute at the request of DEFRA and the Carbon Trust and we’ll not be able to comment on it as it’s consultation process is now over. see consultation doc http://www.bsi-global.com/upload/Standards%20&%20Publications/PSS/Consul…

The idea is that it could be developed into a British Standard and then an ISO.

My main comment that i would have liked to have added to the consultation is the risk of double counting.

For most people interested in understanding the GHG impacts of their action there is a void around understanding their emissions from products and services consumed and while this labeling system should help to fill that, this is the first standard, as far as i know, that includes “In-use emissions”

from their text

“6.3.6 In use emissions

GHG emissions arising from activities normally associated with the use of the product (e.g.
cooking of food, heating of water for washing hair with shampoo) shall be included in the
system boundary.
COMMENTARY ON 6.3.6
The inclusion of emissions arising from the use phase is desirable as it ensures the full lifecycle
GHG impact of the product is accounted for. However, inclusion of use phase emissions
may increase uncertainty in the results obtained, and may reduce the comparability of results
arising from the implementation of this method.”

This would seem to be right if we’re to understand the full Life Cycle Analysis and a quote that i’ve seen is something to the extent of “processed chick peas will have a far higher embedded energy than packet of dried chick peas if the end user cooking energy consumption isn’t accounted for but the true impact after the two types of peas have been cooked is very different because of the high energy needed to cook them”

while i think there’s an issue here that the consumer needs to be aware off, adding an estimated amount of GHG for end user use of products, causes a problem when we’re trying to use the labels to calculate our own household emissions. We’re already likely to have included our cooking consumption through our utility bills.

There’s a second issue. a concerned person might leave the chick peas to soak for a couple of days before cooking while others may cook straight from the package. So we’re already been judged by averages and attributed these emissions.

On the flip side i have a client who supplies recycling bins and compost bins and he wants the “in use emissions” to be attributed as a negative (or positive) against the other Life Cycle impacts. i.e. the use of his products reduce emissions.

On a more positive note;
one of the problems for companies is the cost of producing a supply chain audit. Another client went to the carbon trust and they asked for 50k to perform the task making it impossible for huge portion of companies. This standard “aims” to bridge the gap between a rigorous approach and one that is relevant to the thousands of companies. and although many will feel this is a weakening of the result and open to abuse, i think it’s an important first step to making it accessible and the rules can be tightened and loosened depending on needs as an ongoing process.

another positive is the standard will standardise approaches and so we’ll hopefully no that two claimed footprints are comparable. i agree that there is a long way, Maybe 10 years of work, to go, before these labels can be trusted. However, until now the product related footprints, which are probably most comprehensively quoted on this site, have used a jumble sale of approaches and so can be very missleading.

the draft is available here although i imagine it will change this month http://ecommittees.bsi-global.com/bsi/controller/PAS_2050_First_Draft.pd…

shane

Josiah

additional information. Double counting, as well as too many assumptions – do you cook your chick peas wik the lid on or off the pan… make it difficult to see how useful the BSI really is, though as you say it does allow for more direct comparisons between products and companies to be made.

You may find this of interest (esp. from page 36 on); http://www.oresundfood.org/files/1a5d40e38e_oefn-oeea_rapport_v04.pdf

and more generally this site is invaluable; http://www.fcrn.org.uk/ if you haven’t come across it already do sign up for Tara’s mailing list.

Thanks again also for all the other info – I’ll get in touch when our group has had a chance to chat.

Josiah