Best practice for displaying environmental labels
22 October 2024Together with the food industry, we have developed a best practice guide for businesses to apply environmental labels to UK food and drink products.
Following a proliferation of labelling schemes in the UK and globally, a consistent approach to environmental labelling across the whole UK food industry is critical to cut through the confusion of multiple schemes available. That’s why IGD has been working together with stakeholders across the food industry to conduct research, build evidence and develop a consistent solution.
IGD’s Toolkit will enable businesses to implement environmental labelling consistently. The Toolkit includes best practice guidance and assets across three areas:
Display and positioning of the environmental label icon – download below
Communicating to consumers about environmental labelling – see here
Generating the environmental impact score – in development
This work takes inspiration from the success of front-of-pack nutrition labelling, where IGD developed a best-practice approach to bring consistency and help consumers make more informed decisions.
This specific guide provides technical guidance on how to display and position environmental label icons consistently. It has been co-created by label design and packaging experts from the food and consumer goods industry and is based on five phases of extensive consumer research and rigorous evidence built over a three-year period.
Download the best practice guide for the display and positioning of environmental labels:
Download the label assets here.
We strongly recommend that businesses use this guide in conjunction with the other guides in IGD’s Environmental Labelling Toolkit listed above. We continue to work closely with industry, government and other stakeholders to finalise the guidance that will help businesses generate environmental impact scores; this guidance will be critical to ensure the scores are consistent and comparable.
Environmental labels are only one element of a shopper journey and they should not replace existing information such as certification schemes or health advice. However when implemented consistently using the Toolkit, environmental labelling will:
Help consumers make more sustainable purchasing decisions by providing transparent information about the environmental impact of products.
Enable businesses' decisions around supply chain efficiencies and sourcing by providing more transparent information about the environmental impact of supply chains.
Ultimately, support the transition towards a more sustainable and resilient food system.
For questions about this guide, or the other sections of the Environmental Labelling Toolkit, please contact [email protected]