Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the National Standards Authority of Ireland (Carbon Footprint Labelling) Bill 2021 and I congratulate Deputies Bacik and Duncan Smith for drafting and proposing the Bill. The Bill, if enacted, would provide the carbon footprint on every product to provide consumers with carbon information and would place an obligation on the NSAI to define a standard approach to carbon labelling as well as to ensure consistency in labelling.

Yesterday, when I introduced my Bill to ban car-idling near schools, I reiterated the point that individuals in society can often feel overwhelmed when it comes to looking at ways they can make an impact on climate change and pointed out that simple initiatives like this can make all the difference. Climate change is often seen as too big a problem and yet the Government continues to send out the message that individuals must do their bit. This has placed enormous pressure on individuals to reduce their carbon footprint, change their lifestyle and buy the often more expensive but greener product, but people are not yet empowered with the relevant information to help them make the greener, more sustainable choices.

As consumers, people continue to be fooled into believing that the choices they are making are green when, in fact, they are not or could, at worst, contribute to the harm of our planet through often aggressive greenwashing exercises by large corporations. The Bill, if implemented, could assist people in their decision-making by informing their decisions and empowering them as consumers. They could then make real and impactful changes if they knew the amount of carbon emitted in sourcing, producing, manufacturing, transporting and packaging a product by the time it gets to the shelves of their local shops.

It would also prevent the widespread use of greenwashing by companies and the misleading information that is out there in the selling of products. The culture of greenwashing is, in my view, the consumerisation of climate action. We are starting to go in the direction of a consumer world where false impressions or misleading information about how a company's product is environmentally friendly is making people believe that consuming products are one way to fight climate change when often the opposite is true.

While I welcome this Bill, I recognise that there will be complexities in implementing it. These are complexities that we will need to overcome and this is an important starting point for that. We are asking producers of products to research, examine and source information on all the ingredients, activities and resources that were used to make a product and the carbon footprint as a result of all that. For some products, this might be particularly difficult to calculate. We are looking at a global and supply chain approach to it as well which would also add complexities.

We would need to be cognisant of our small local businesses, particularly their capacity to make significant changes in the way their products are labelled and the additional demands on them. The Government can lead by providing supports and the framework for businesses to adapt to these and future changes in our effort to combat climate change. It would be another reason for us to promote locally grown and locally produced and home-run businesses. The complexity of the job of putting in place carbon labelling will demonstrate that local is best, particularly when it comes to food. Our focus needs to be on ensuring that this happens and that, when large structural changes occur, we act on climate change. However, supporting our local businesses will be key to the success of the implementation of climate actions such as this.

While I support this Bill, I believe that carbon is only one piece of a bigger puzzle when it comes to the information that consumers require to be fully informed of their impact on the climate. This comes back to the fact that we cannot be talking about climate separate from biodiversity. We have two crises but they are very much the same crisis. The impact on one will have an impact on the other and our measures to address one will also address the other.

The issue of climate change is not only about emissions. It is also about other forms of pollution. It is about unsustainable use of resources and the continuing degradation of our biodiversity and our natural heritage. What about the water footprint of our clothes? I worked in Australia for ten years, through the worst drought in history there. The water impact of the food we were eating, the houses we were living in and the products we were using was a key consideration. Sometimes we forget this element of our natural resources and the environment that we utilise.

What about the ecological footprint of our food plates or the products we are using? We could have a product that is carbon sustainable but very damaging from a biodiversity perspective. Trees are very good at capturing carbon but they could be devastating for the local biodiversity in the area. It is about having that full picture. To gauge the real impact of a product on our environment, a company should have to demonstrate the full environmental impact and not only its carbon footprint. I acknowledge that this will add to the complexity of the work that would need to be done.

The carbon footprint of a product may be low but it could be negatively impacting on the environment in terms of how much water the product needs. Even the most trivial products can have some kind of impact on the environment. Developing something akin to a life-cycle assessment of a product would paint a more accurate picture when the ecological and resource impact of a product is taken into consideration.

When we introduce initiatives like these, it is about facilitating a cultural shift, providing more information and developing an education piece to work beside our current exploration of what it is we need to be doing to stop climate change. For individuals, the feeling of wanting to do something tangible and with a real impact can seem overwhelming, especially in the age of endless information, whether true or false. On top of greenwashing, people are faced with an ever-growing list of things that they need to be seen to be doing as legitimately contributing to climate action. It can have almost a paralysing effect on people. Should a person give up using plastic straws, move away from fast fashion, stop eating avocados, grow their own vegetables or buy bamboo toothbrushes? There are so many choices out there with so little information. It makes it difficult for people to make informed individual choices, and ones that they feel will actually have the impact we need.

I welcome this Bill. As I said, it is a starting point. I hope the Government works with the Labour Party and with the Opposition on this. It is a good stepping stone to what we need to achieve.

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