When will the eco-footprint for food be introduced in Germany?

Environmental labelling of food has long been welcomed and demanded by researchers in Germany. In 2020, the Scientific Advisory Board on Agricultural Policy, Food and Consumer Health Protection submitted a report to the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Previously, the Scientific Advisory Councils on Agricultural and Food Policy had already recommended labelling the environmental impact of food in 2011. In 2021, corsus, together with Zühlsdorf+Partner and the KATALYSE Institute, compared options in the BMUV project “Climate label vs. eco-score” and showed the way to environmental labelling for food. Dr Ulrike Eberle from corsus is also advising the TCL initiative, which is campaigning for a food label. As part of the EEKlim project in Lower Saxony, corsus is developing a methodology for a climate and environmental label for food and the EU LIFE project ECO FOOD CHOICE, in which corsus is involved, is also advocating environmental labelling for food in Europe.

The Tagesspiegel now writes in “Tagesspiegel Background” that more and more companies are demanding state environmental labelling for food, but that at the same time the framework conditions for this at European and German level are still lacking. The Green Claims Directive, which, like the Health Claims Directive, only wants to allow substantiated environmental claims on the market, was passed by the European Parliament in autumn 2023. There will probably not be standardised rules for an ecological footprint, but the underlying method must be made transparent. In an interview with the Tagesspiegel, Ulrike Eberle emphasises that binding rules would be particularly important in order to establish comparability and credibility so that environmental claims do not distort competition. The basis for this is a freely accessible database on the environmental impact of food, modelled on the French Agribalyse database. However, this does not currently exist in Germany, although many stakeholders have long been in favour of it, including the companies in the TCL initiative. Such a database would not only be the basis for labelling, but would also make it easier for many companies to calculate their Scope 3 emissions as part of their corporate carbon footprint. And this in turn supports sustainability reporting in accordance with CSRD.

In France, an eco-label for textiles has just been launched and further eco-labels – including for food – are being planned. When will we finally make progress in Germany?