corsus presents methodological concept for a climate and environmental label at “Agricultural research on climate change” conference

Marius Rödder presented the methodological concept for a climate and environmental label at the DAFA conference “Agricultural Research on Climate Change”, which took place in Potsdam from 11 to 14 March 2024. The concept was developed by corsus as part of the project “Development and testing of a climate label for Lower Saxony” (EEKlim) at the University of Göttingen.

Many rules must be defined for the calculation method and the data basis for labelling so that the end result is a label that meets the diverse expectations of stakeholders. Not only must the accuracy, comparability and directional stability of the assessments be ensured, but the label must also be understood by consumers and used by producers and retailers. Last but not least, labelling should be considered at a European level, as there are already proposals for a food label, particularly from France, and a food label is also to be implemented as part of the EU Commission’s farm-to-fork strategy.

After corsus recently presented the methodology concept to the TCL initiative, it has now been presented again as part of the session “Climate-friendly nutrition and the special role of climate labels”. The EEKlim project was also represented by a presentation by Dr Birgit Schulze-Ehlers (University of Göttingen), who focused in particular on the results of consumer research, which are just as important as the methodological concept. Franziska Mathias and Felix Bröcker presented the results of the ENKL project (Thünen Institute, Max Rubner Institute), which is particularly concerned with the social dimension of climate-friendly nutrition. Dr Anika Trebbin (Thünen Institute) presented an overview of current climate and environmental labels, which was developed as part of the Thünen Institute’s KlimaLabel project. The session was framed by Dr Marie von Mayer-Höfer (also from the Thünen Institute), and during the two-hour session it became clear how complex food labelling is and that there are already good proposals for its implementation.

We look forward to a further exchange on the topic and are always happy to answer any questions.