Marshalls gives all its products carbon labels

A building materials company has become the first business to adopt a new carbon labelling scheme for all products.

Marshalls, which employs 3000 staff at 67 sites in Britain, has used the government-backed PAS 2050 standard to measure 503 products in its domestic range – so that it can place a Carbon Reduction Label on all the goods. In addition, every product shows the volume of greenhouse gases emitted during its life cycle.

PAS 2050, drawn up by BSI British Standards, the Carbon Trust and the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is intended to provide a universal method of calculating greenhouse gas emissions from goods and services throughout their life cycle (EP10, issue 7, p2).

Marshalls, which specializes in paving and landscaping materials, has undergone independent certification against the standard and has committed to a reduce-or-lose policy, under which labels will be withdrawn from products if their carbon footprint is not reduced within two years.