Costa Rica leads again

It’s more than ten years since I was involved in developing a first ever environmental footprint label for food and drink packaging, along similar lines to a nutrition label.

Unfortunately, the Carbon Action Plan was vaporised by the global economic meltdown.

Now, Costa Rica, which recently became the lead country to legislate for carbon neutrality by 2021, has also introduced a new environmental labelling scheme.

Its significance is that it not only includes

• a carbon footprint, but also adds

• a water footprint and

• a broader environmental footprint, based on a full life cycle analysis calculation.

There is a formal technical standard for it, with a reference of INTE/ISO 14026:2018, as well as a logo.

Bravo to the Costa Rican Institute of Technical Standards.