Centre to help lower NZ footprint

Shoppers should have a much better idea of the environmental cost of their purchases under a new scheme to track products from cradle to shelf and beyond.

A new Life Cycle Assessment Centre at Massey University will oversee efforts to measure the environmental impact of products made in New Zealand.

MAF has given Massey $1.3 million to set up the centre.

Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey said the primary focus would be to help producers understand and reduce greenhouse gas pollution and water use.

But shoppers also stand to benefit if the centre comes up with fairer and more consistent ways to measure products' environmental costs.
Mr Maharey said measuring environmental costs could not be left to individual companies because shoppers would not trust the results.

The success of Landcare Research's carbon offset scheme showed people wanted audited information, not just the assurance of sellers, he said.

The new centre would be the "icing on the cake" for a large amount of research already being done by Crown Research Institutes AgResearch, Landcare Research, Scion Forest Research, and Plant and Food Research.

A global hunt is underway for a professor to head the centre when it opens next year.

If the life cycle centre succeeds in getting better information about products, it may have a positive spin-off for the economy.

Concerns about food miles - a shorthand term for the carbon emissions created to get produce from paddock to plate - have the potential to damage New Zealand exporters if shoppers in Europe and elsewhere adopt "buy local" campaigns to combat global warming.

Mr Maharey said the aim was to give better information to producers, not to respond to overseas pressure from shoppers.

But helping producers could lead to better information for shoppers here and overseas, he said.

New Zealand producers argue the added efficiency of growing food here more than makes up for the extra carbon it produces on the way to market.

Mr Maharey said he could foresee a day when products carried their carbon footprint on the label alongside ingredients and other information.

"Consumers [of New Zealand exports] are going to be people who are relatively well educated with discretionary income. They can shift their income around easily to follow the products they feel are meeting their needs [so] it will be essential that we can address their concerns."

Mr Maharey said the centre would aim to understand exactly how much carbon was produced by a product such as milk or meat throughout its life.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water use would be the two main priorities.