Product carbon footprinting and labeling in Thailand: experiences from an exporting nation

Product carbon footprinting has gained much attention in recent years as many national and international standards have been formulated as well as several carbon labeling schemes. Thailand has also made efforts in this direction over the past several years and is in fact the first country in the southeast Asian region to have developed national guidelines for carbon footprint calculation and labeling. During the process of conducting product carbon footprinting for pilot studies, many issues of concern were raised, some of which may be common to all countries, while others were more specific for tropical countries exporting agricultural products. Experiences are drawn from the study of several national (Publicly Available Specification 2050, Japanese and Thai national guidelines) and international (ISO14067) standards, including the application of some of these to several product carbon footprinting studies. Issues of data collection, grouping of products, co-product allocation, land-use change, product category rules, type of carbon label and consumer understanding have been discussed, with some possible solutions given to address these issues. The cost of carbon footprinting and labeling are also discussed, along with their implications on companies implementing carbon footprinting. Finally, suggestions are made for issues to be discussed at the international level with a view to harmonizing the carbon footprinting methodology, as well as to address the specific concerns of developing countries that have a large volume of agriculture-based exports.