The proposed scheme, announced earlier today (3 September), will involve the footprinting, certification and labelling of products, which will help businesses meet sustainable public procurement requirements and improve access for Brazilian businesses to international export markets.

It will initially be based upon pilot studies in four target subsectors with significant environmental impacts: aluminium, cement, chemicals, and pulp and paper. Following the pilot phase, the Carbon Trust’s intention is to roll the scheme out across all sectors.

The Trust’s senior consultant Dr Paul Taylor said: “Creating a successful certification and labelling scheme to incentivise sustainable production and consumption can deliver a lot of value for both Brazilian businesses and the environment.

“Understanding the full lifecycle environmental impact of a product does a lot more than just provide competitive advantage – it helps to identify and target areas of inefficiency, unnecessary cost, and environmental impact.”

First steps

The Carbon Trust is in Sao Paolo this week, hosting a workshop for Brazilian government representatives and industry stakeholders, as the first step in determining the best approach for developing a successful scheme suited to the local economy.

The project builds upon the Carbon Trust’s experience in creating sustainable production certification and labelling schemes, including the development of the first ever product carbon footprint label as well as current work taking place on developing new schemes in the Malaysia, Mexico and Hong Kong. 

Brazil is in a comparatively strong competitive position globally to meet demand for more sustainable production, as the country currently produces around three-quarters of its electricity from low carbon renewable energy sources, predominantly hydropower.

Luke Nicholls

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