Implementing environmental labelling of food products in France

Arnaud Hélias (1) , Hayo M. G. van Der Werf (2) , Louis-Georges Soler (3) , Franck Aggeri (4) , Jean-Yves Dourmad (5) , Chantal Julia (6, 7) , Lydiane Nabec (8) , Sylvain Pellerin (9) , Bernard Ruffieux (10) , Gilles Trystram (11)

1 UMR ITAP - Technologies et Méthodes pour les Agricultures de demain
2 SAS - Sol Agro et hydrosystème Spatialisation
3 UMR PSAE - Paris-Saclay Applied Economics
4 CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3
5 PEGASE - Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage [Rennes]
6 EREN [CRESS - U1153 / UMR_A 1125] - Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team | Equipe de Recherche en Epidémiologie Nutritionnelle
7 Département de Santé Publique [Avicenne]
8 RITM - Réseaux Innovation Territoires et Mondialisation
9 UMR ISPA - Interactions Sol Plante Atmosphère
10 GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble
11 SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering

Consumers increasingly demand information about the environmental impacts of their food. The French government is in the process of introducing environmental labelling for all food products. A scientific council was set up, and its main conclusions are presented in this article, through six questions: What environmental issues should be considered? What objective should be targeted? What data are needed, and for whom? What methods for assessing environmental impacts? Which environmental scores should be chosen? What label format should be proposed? By answering these questions and considering the context, the available data, the proposed methods and adjustments, and the knowledge of consumer perception of formats, the scientific council considers that a labelling scheme is feasible and relevant.

Keywords: Data; Environmental labelling; Food; Operationalization; Public policy

Domains: Environment and Society

Arnaud Hélias, Hayo M. G. van Der Werf, Louis-Georges Soler, Franck Aggeri, Jean-Yves Dourmad, et al.. Implementing environmental labelling of food products in France. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2022, ⟨10.1007/s11367-022-02071-8⟩. ⟨hal-03697547⟩