Climate Footprint Labels

A simple, no-cost policy that cuts emissions at gigatonne scale.

For decades, the climate impact of everyday products has been invisible to the people who buy them - even when producers calculate it. The result is that producers - who would otherwise compete on emissions - do not compete.

Climate change is a systems failure, not a moral one. Climate footprint labels close one of the system's most fixable gaps - the gap between what consumers care about and what producers make visible. It is a gap that is easy to close, because there is already an agreed international standard to measure climate footprints and governments have closed similar gaps (e.g., nutrition information) with labels before.

This is one of the world’s highest‑impact, no‑cost climate solutions - a multi-gigatonne opportunity hiding in plain sight.

We manage what we measure. When emissions become visible at the shelf and at checkout, producers compete to reduce them, lower-emission producers are rewarded, and emissions fall across the largest and most flexible parts of the economy.

The world currently emits over 50 billion tonnes ("gigatonnes") of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse gases per year. Most global emissions come from parts of the economy where consumers and producers lack clear information - including products and services (~11 billion tonnes per year), food and diet (~12 billion tonnes per year), freight and materials, and waste (see global emissions Sankey analysis, published in our Research & Insights section). These are large, flexible categories that respond quickly when transparency improves.

Watch: Can a Label Solve Climate Change?

Short answer: not on its own. But mandatory climate footprint labels could close one of the system's most fixable gaps - and unlock emissions reductions of over 3 billion tonnes a year. A 15-minute walk through the why, the how, and how to sign Canada's federal e-petition.

Listen: "Just Put A Number On It"

A short song about why climate footprint labels would let capitalism do the heavy lifting. Available in two flavors. Videos have lyrics (same for both songs) if you want to sing along.

Pop Version

Rock Version

Why This Matters

Today

As Soon As Possible

Consumers everywhere lack clear information
Producers everywhere lack incentives to reduce waste, materials, energy, and freight
Supply‑chain emissions are massive - and among the easiest to reduce once they become visible
Most producers wait for a level playing field rather than moving alone
Footprint transparency drives competition, efficiency, and innovation in every market

Climate footprint labels are rare, used mostly by early adopters in the UK and EU and a handful of global brands.

Require climate footprints on all products and services, and all three improve.

Producer competition on footprint

Supply-chain decarbonization at scale

Consumer empowerment to reward the lower-emission option

How to Use This Page

Explore what individuals, companies, and governments can do
Use the templates to take action
Share the idea with your community

Estimated Global Impact

~3 GtCO2e per year in global reductions
- Equivalent to eliminating the annual emissions of the entire European Union
Driven by:
- Supply-chain cleanup
- Consumer choice signals and shifts
- Freight, packaging, and materials optimization
- Waste reduction

What Individuals Can Do

Ask your favourite brands to display climate footprint labels
Support companies that already provide climate transparency
Share examples from early adopters
Use our template email to contact your representative
Talk about climate labels with friends and family - the more people who see the system fix, the faster it lands

Source: Asics

What Companies Can Do

Be one of the brands listed in the "What Good Looks Like" section below
Start measuring supply‑chain emissions
Use draft methodologies early
Display voluntary labels
Lead on efficiency, innovation, and transparency
Reduce waste, materials, energy, and freight costs

Source: Oatly

Source: Quorn

What Governments Can Do

Every country will choose its own path. The timeline and ideas below are offered as pragmatic, globally relevant examples that governments can consider as they explore climate solutions.

And when governments work together on a shared timeline and approach, it makes it easier for producers to respond with common supply-chain emissions math and similar packaging adjustments.

2026: Announce Intent

Signal that your country will require climate footprint labels.

2027: Voluntary Reporting Phase

Producers begin reporting supply‑chain emissions using draft methodologies.

2028: Mandatory Default Labels

Food, consumer goods, and packaging carry government‑defined CO₂e labels (unless a producer is ready to verify their own).

2030: Full Implementation

All products and services sold in the country include standardized CO₂e labels using agreed methodologies.

This is now a universal policy pathway.

Who Benefits

Consumers

Producers

Clear information
Empowered choices
Opportunities for lower-cost, lower-impact solutions

Clear rules
Fair competition
Direct signals from consumers through choices
Incentives to innovate
Potential for lower supply-chain costs

Governments

Lower national emissions
Help meet national targets and save taxpayers money in a pragmatic, no-cost way through consumer choices
Stronger competitiveness
Potential for lower household costs
A globally-scalable model

Templates

These templates make it easy to take action - whether you’re contacting your representative, reaching out to a company, or sharing this idea with others in your community.

Email your representative

Download PDF

Email a company

Download PDF

Community message

Download PDF

If You Live In Canada...

We've made it easy - you can simply sign an e-petition. Takes two minutes. Closes October 9th.

Live Somewhere Else?

If you live somewhere else and would like to make it easy for your country too (e.g., through an e-petition or referendum process), please reach out. We'd love to help and are happy to share what we learned.

What Good Looks Like: Brands Leading the Way

Each of these examples shows that footprint labelling is already possible, already working, and already winning consumer trust. The methodology exists. Consumer support is strong and consistent across every major market. And a growing number of producers are leading voluntarily - precisely because they've discovered that transparency is a competitive advantage, not a burden.

What's missing is the requirement that levels the playing field. Most producers aren't waiting because they're opposed - they're waiting because no company wants to move alone. A clear mandate removes that hesitation and turns a voluntary movement into a universal standard that empowers consumers to make informed choices.

Oatly, Food & Beverage, Sweden/Global

The pioneer. Oatly has shown its CO₂e footprint on-pack since 2019 and ran a campaign calling on the entire food industry to "show us your numbers." Their approach: publish the number, commit to improving it, repeat. Labels are now on products in North America too.

Asics
Footwear, Japan/Global

Asics displays CO₂e footprints on shoe packaging across North America - one of the first major athletic brands to bring this level of transparency to a mainstream retail shelf.

Logitech Electronics, Switzerland/Global

84% of Logitech products now carry a third-party reviewed carbon footprint label, calculated by full lifecycle assessment to ISO 14067 standards. What sets them apart: they've shared their entire methodology royalty-free, actively inviting the electronics industry to follow. Transparency as sector leadership.

Atria, Poultry, Finland

Since 2021, one of Finland's largest food producers has printed a kg CO₂e number on every consumer pack of chicken - 2.56 kg CO₂e per kilogram of chicken, covering farming, packaging, ingredients, and processing. Atria calculates it farm by farm using the international Cool Farm Tool, aligned with the EU's Product Environmental Footprint and IPCC methodologies. Proof that footprint transparency works in mainstream animal protein - the category where the number is highest, and so is the reward for the producer who moves first.

Panera Bread, Restaurants, North America

The first restaurant chain to label carbon footprints, Panera has carried a "Cool Food" badge on menu items since 2020 - identifying meals that meet both nutritional and lower-carbon thresholds. With over 2,000 locations across North America, this is footprint transparency at everyday consumer scale.

Albert Heijn, Grocery Retail, Netherlands

Albert Heijn has added CO₂e labels to its meat range and is actively working to reduce those emissions. A major European supermarket, voluntarily labelling beef - one of the highest-footprint food categories - and competing on reducing it.

Chipotle Restaurants, North America

Chipotle's "Real Foodprint" feature shows customers the environmental benefit of each order compared to conventional ingredients - less carbon, water saved, antibiotics avoided, improved soil health. Delivered through their app at the moment of ordering, it's a compelling example of digital-first footprint transparency that goes beyond a single number to show the full picture.

Quorn, Food & Beverage, UK/Global

Every serving of Quorn Crispy Vegetarian Nuggets carries a 0.36 kg CO₂e number, verified by the Carbon Trust and calculated farm-to-fork - ingredients, factory, packaging, transport, retail, and end-of-life. Quorn has published third-party accredited footprints since 2012 and now covers 60% of its UK sales by volume. Proof that decade-long transparency and continuous reduction can coexist as a business model.

Allbirds Footwear, US/New Zealand

Every Allbirds product carries its carbon footprint per unit - and the label is part of why they've achieved a 22% per-unit reduction since 2022. When the number is visible, the pressure to improve it is real. Allbirds shows that footprint transparency is as natural in apparel as it is in food.

Avallen Calvados Spirits, UK/Normandy

Avallen labels every bottle with its full environmental facts - water usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and packaging impact - verified by independent Life Cycle Assessment. Transparency as the brand's strongest selling point.

Numi Organic Tea, Food & Beverage, US/Global

The first US tea producer to label product carbon footprints, Numi shows 0.038 kg CO₂e per cup - broken down into four categories: ingredients, packaging, transport, and preparation. Their supply chain study revealed that 46% of a cup of tea's footprint comes from boiling water. That kind of discovery only happens when you measure - and it points directly to where producers and consumers can both act.

Polestar, Automotive, Sweden/Global

The first automaker to publish a full life-cycle carbon footprint for every model in its lineup, third-party reviewed by Ricardo, with methodology and numbers all in the open. The Polestar 5's cradle-to-grave footprint is 27.1 to 38.1 tCO₂e depending on how it's charged; per-car emissions have dropped 31% since 2020. The number isn't printed on the car, but publishing it openly is what let Polestar reduce it. "You cannot reduce what you don't measure," says head of sustainability Fredrika Klarén.

What these brands have in common

None of them waited. All of them measured their footprint - most using ISO 14067, the established international standard for product carbon footprints - and all of them found that measuring revealed opportunities to reduce it, often at lower cost than expected. And all of them found that transparency, far from being a liability, became a competitive advantage.

The methodology exists. The standard exists. The country that requires this information on every product doesn't disadvantage its producers. It gives them the clearest possible signal about where to improve - and helps set the standard that the rest of the world will eventually follow.

Common Questions

Won't having labels raise prices?

No. Labelling itself adds negligible cost, and once labels create producer competition, efficiency improvements in materials, energy, and freight may actually lower production costs.

The separate question is how much will products cost when the climate footprint labels finally read zero. Good news! Because we finally have all of the "do our best, remove the rest" solutions we need to address greenhouse gas pollution, we know that the answer will be an incremental cost of about 2% more for most products at net zero. (See our Geo Zero advocacy idea and 2% Epiphany blog post for more on that exciting topic!)

Are the numbers reliable?

ISO 14067 is the established international standard for product carbon footprints, with rigorous life-cycle assessment methodology. Brands like Logitech (and others showcased above) publish third-party-reviewed footprints calculated to this standard.

Is this consumer guilt?

No. Consumers already care, but don't have a way of rewarding producers that try a little harder to address their product's climate footprint. Producer competition does most of the work once labels are required, well upstream of the shopper. Consumer choice is the signal that triggers producers to take action.

Will consumers be confused by the numbers?

Consumers do not need to interpret absolute numbers. They need to compare options in the same category, as shoppers have done for decades with nutrition and efficiency labels.

Imagine two bottles of BBQ sauce - like those depicted below. The one on the left (with the lower number) has a smaller climate footprint, meaning fewer greenhouse gases were emitted in the creation of the product. Purchasing the "Lakeside Smokehouse" BBQ sauce would mean that your family has made a climate-friendlier choice vs. "Coastline Pantry".

Concept for Climate Footprint Labels in Canada

The International Landscape

Regulatory action on emissions disclosure is already underway across major markets. The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) requires importers to declare embedded emissions in carbon-intensive goods. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires standardized emissions disclosure from large companies operating in the EU, including non-EU producers selling into the market. The EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology underpins emerging product-level regulations across multiple sectors. The United Kingdom is implementing its own CBAM from January 2027. Other countries have active consultations on related disclosure rules.

Producers will face these regulations whether or not their home jurisdictions act. Governments that lead now position their producers among the early movers in emerging low-carbon markets, and earn a seat at the table in shaping the standards that other jurisdictions will eventually adopt.

Case Study: Canada

Here's one example of how a country has used transparency to empower consumers and shift markets.

Canada's "Nutrition Facts" labels empowered consumers to make informed, healthy choices about their diets. Canada’s "EnerGuide" labels transformed the appliance market and helped consumers save money by making efficiency visible.

Climate footprint labels apply the same proven mechanism to the rest of the economy.

Here is a two-page briefing note describing how Canada could lead on climate footprints.

Download PDF

Source: Health Canada

Source: Natural Resources Canada

Canada has also begun corporate-level climate disclosure through the Canadian Sustainability Disclosure Standards, aligned with international standards and effective January 2025. What's missing is the extension of that disclosure infrastructure to the product level, where consumers and producers make daily decisions.

How This Moves Forward

Climate footprint labels are a simple, no‑cost policy that reduces emissions at gigatonne scale. They increase transparency across supply chains and help consumers make informed choices, often revealing opportunities for lower‑cost, lower‑impact options.

Climate footprint labels become standard when three things build at once:

Governments need to see clear voter support, so policymakers have political space to act.
Producers need confidence that competition will be fair, so they don't have to move alone.
Consumers need to know they are not alone in caring, so demand becomes visible to both governments and producers.

Each action on this page helps build one or more of those signals. The combination is how transparency policies have moved forward in every other domain, and your actions help move this one too.