The Current and the Future of the Carbon Footprint of Products

Abstract

The carbon footprint started in UK in 2007 becomes big movement of the world as the “Visualization” of CO₂ emission of the products. A trial project of the carbon footprint in Japan has launched in 2008 supported by METI. It is different from the conventional life cycle assessment (LCA) on the points to focus on CO₂ and the global warming gases, to target food and daily necessities sold in a supermarket and to display to an article directly. It is aiming at reducing GHGs not only by producers but by consumers, showing GHGs on the daily goods. In this report, domestic and foreign trends about the carbon footprint, activities of the international standardization and main points of arguments toward the implementation of carbon footprint are introduced.