Oatly, the original and largest Swedish oat drink company, today launched a campaign in the UK, calling for all food and drink companies to follow its lead and publish the climate footprint of their products.
The campaign comes as new research reveals UK consumers strongly support the idea of carbon labelling on food and drink:
- Most (62%) are in favour of a policy to introduce carbon labelling on food/drink products, and 55% think companies should be obliged to publish that information.
- Most consumers (59%) would reduce or stop entirely consumption of high carbon-footprint food and drink products, if provided with accurate emissions data.
- Young people (18-34) are particularly engaged: they are significantly more interested than other age groups in knowing the carbon footprint of their food and drink; more in agreement about the need for carbon labelling; and more likely to change their consumption habits.
At a time when the government appears to be softening a number of key environmental measures, Oatly has published a ‘Grey Paper’: Climate Labelling: Why Not?. This is aimed at making the case for mandatory climate labelling, focused on three core arguments:
- The science is unequivocal: emissions from the food system, which currently equate to 35% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions, must come down and changes to consumer choice are vital: “Dietary change can deliver environmental benefits on a scale not achievable by producers.” The UK Government’s Climate Change Committee has made the explicit recommendation that we must reduce our dairy intake by 20% by 2030 and that the Government “implement policies to encourage consumers to shift towards healthier diets and reduce food waste.”
- Consumers are already given similar information elsewhere – for example, EPC certificates when buying a house, emissions data when buying a car, Energy Rating data when buying a TV or a fridge. The same must logically apply to food and drink.
- There is broad public support for mandatory carbon labelling on food and drink as a means to make more informed choices.
To highlight the campaign, Oatly has publicly challenged the dairy industry to reveal its own climate numbers, so shoppers can make a truly like-for-like comparison. Oatly has paid for high-profile advertising space and offered it to ‘Big Dairy’ for free, if they publish the full climate footprint of their products.
Bryan Carroll, UK general manager, Oatly, says: “The food and drink we consume is responsible for a third of total UK emissions. Scientists, including the UK Government’s own Climate Change Committee, are clear that those emissions must urgently come down and that consumer behaviour change is a necessary part of that. Our view is that it’s unreasonable to expect this to happen when consumers are not being given the information they need to make informed choices. Given the urgency of our climate challenge, we believe it should be as easy for shoppers to find the climate impact of what they’re buying, as it is to find its price tag.”
It comes as the Government creates the first Food Data Transparency Partnership which, among other objectives, is exploring possible climate labelling policies for food and drink. With its latest campaign, Oatly is cautioning against inadequate outcomes and looking to share its own experiences of climate-labelling with policy-makers and industry. Oatly has been publishing the climate impact data of its products on-pack in the UK since 2019.
Carroll continued: “We’ve published a ‘grey paper’ because climate labelling isn’t a black and white issue where certain foods are good and others are not. This is about giving consumers the freedom to make informed choices about what they’re buying and how it impacts the planet – from grower to grocer. We’re inviting those across the full spectrum of the food industry to come together and work out what an effective climate labelling system should look like. One that doesn’t cost the earth but helps preserve the Earth. Together we can put collective pressure on the UK Government to make this happen and not get watered down like some other environmental policies have, sadly, been lately.”
Over the coming months Oatly will be continuing to call on the food and drink industry to come together and pressure policy-makers to implement mandatory climate labelling. Oatly is encouraging like-minded businesses to join the campaign and get in touch using climatelabelling@oatly.com.
