Attributes of carbon labelling to drive consumer purchase intentions

Although some forms of environmental labelling have been available for more than several decades, carbon labelling is a more recent development. Carbon labelling is ‘the practice of publicly communicating, via a label associated with a product or service, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the life cycle of that product or service’ ([1]; p. 348). The world’s first carbon label, i.e. the carbon reduction label, was published by Carbon Trust in the UK in 2006 [2]. Since then, a number of carbon-labelling schemes have been initiated worldwide. The objective of all these schemes is the same — to be able to provide reliable and meaningful information to consumers regarding the level of greenhouse gases emitted in the production of a product. Ultimately, it is hoped that such labels would help motivate consumers to choose products which have a smaller carbon footprint