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Food: Sustainable Development

Volume 470: debated on Wednesday 23 January 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will take steps to include carbon emissions from transport under the evaluative criteria for food labels which indicate the environmental friendliness and sustainability of products; and if he will take steps to encourage the use of water-borne freight as a means of cutting these emissions. (177423)

DEFRA and The Carbon Trust are co-sponsoring the British Standards Institute to develop a methodology to measure the embedded greenhouse gas in products and services including food and drink. This could be used as a basis for an environmental label and will include the emissions from all food transport. We hope this work will encourage the reduction of emissions across the food supply chain, including water-borne freight.