61% of UK consumers have expressed a lack of trust in the claims top UK grocery companies make when it comes to declaring their carbon footprint, research from Bord Bia – The Irish Food Board found.

Bord Bia’s latest report, Consumer and Carbon: Cutting Through the Carbon Jargon, revealed that despite bold corporate moves towards achieving net zero, consumer confusion around carbon is rising. The report found that 53% of shoppers state there are “too many different messages” relating to carbon footprint and carbon emissions.

A further 59% of consumers have no awareness of what their carbon footprint should even be, and 51% claim to need help in lowering their carbon footprint. As a result, 73% of shoppers think that household brands should take on the responsibility for them and also that they need to be more transparent in relation to their carbon footprint.

Packaged consumer foods ranked the highest of the different food types contributing to carbon emissions at 42%.

Substantial work to be done on education

The report found that there is “substantial work” to be done in terms of educating consumers around carbon. Confusion also remains around the terminology and words such as ‘sustainability’, ‘environmental’, and ‘carbon positive’ have been left undefined. Added to this is a wide variety of competing industry benchmarks on packaging.

Industry experts have expressed similar sentiments to consumers regarding the confusion around carbon labelling data. Focus groups consisting of industry practitioners revealed three main concerns: excessive use of averages and typical values, discrepancies in the sources of data providers, and ambiguous or inconsistent definitions.

The full report and its recommendations can be viewed here.