At Current Rate, Grocery Giant Tesco Will Finish Carbon-Labeling Its Products By 2570 AD

Tesco will take centuries to meet its pledge to label all of its 70,000 products with their carbon footprints at its current slow rate of progress. Figures show the supermarket chain is labelling items at a rate of just 125 a year, as data published today showed spending on products carrying the carbon reduction logo is set to top a record £2bn a year.

The Carbon Trust said the sales figure will be reached when the label appears on the supermarket's own-brand pasta next month, three years after the logo launched. Other sectors of the industry are showing caution on carbon labelling and the £2bn figure represents only 1% of the total £198.9bn consumer spending on food and drink (including alcohol) last year in the UK.

In January 2007, Tesco's chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, promised "a revolution in green consumption" as the company pledged to put carbon labels on all 70,000 products – though without a target date. Starting in April 2008, it initially targeted 114 products including orange juice, washing detergent, light bulbs, potatoes and milk, moving on to single-use and reusable bags, kitchen and toilet paper and bread. On its website, it had pledged to calculate the footprint of 500 products by February this year, butwithout a timeline on adding those footprints to labels on products.

Tesco said in a statement: "We have exceeded our target of measuring the full carbon footprint of 500 different products. Over 100 own-brand products are now labelled in our stores. We'll expand this to include more products this year. By the end of this financial year , we hope to have labelled 500 products and footprinted 1,000." But that leaves a significant shortfall on the pledge to label all 70,000 products, which at the current rate will not be achieved for centuries.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/13/tesco-carbon-labels