Denmark Wants Food Labels to Include Environmental Impact

In an effort to better inform consumers of their environmental footprint, Denmark wants to start labeling food with stickers that list the product’s impact, news outlet The Local reports.

“We want to give consumers the means to assess in supermarkets the environmental impact of products,” said Minister for the Environment Lars Christian Lilleholt.

The initiative is part of a proposal that will be presented to the government next week. While the Danish Agriculture & Food Council (DAFC), a trade interest group, welcomed the proposal, it stressed that nutritional value must not be forgotten alongside environmental impact.

“It might be necessary to weigh up the environmental impact against the nutritional value of the product. A bottle of soda may have a low environmental impact, but it is not a product you can live on,” DAFC director Morten Høyer said in a press statement.

The labeling plan, which will involve a collection of supermarkets, will also include a campaign to help consumers better select environmentally friendly products.

“My impression is that there is a demand for knowledge about how individual consumers can contribute to improving world climate,” said Lilleholt.

Denmark, a signatory of the Paris Climate Agreement, ranks among the top 20 countries in the 2018 world Climate Change Performance Index, which evaluates efforts to combat climate change.

Denmark’s food label proposal comes in the wake of a landmark U.N. report this week, which warned the world has about 12 years to avert climate catastrophe at the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions.

Food cultivation and transportation are among the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in many developed countries. According to a 2011 Food and Agriculture Organization report, the annual carbon footprint of wasted food alone accounts for about 8% of all global emissions.