27 food manufacturers and eight retail chains in France want to introduce the Planet-Score. The labelling is to be introduced on around 1,000 products on the respective e-commerce sites. Lidl wants to test the system in shops from 2022 on milk, among other products.
Like the Eco-Score, the Planet-Score is one of 20 concepts for an implementation of the French Climate Resilience Act, which wants to label climate- and sustainability-relevant aspects on food packaging. The governmental sustainability agency Ademe is reviewing all these proposals until the end of December.
The Planet-Score, similar to the Nutri-Score, identifies sustainability in five levels from A (green) to E (red). Pesticide use, biodiversity, climate and animal welfare are assessed on the basis of life cycle analyses.
Planet-Score aims to correct the bias in life cycle assessment calculations by scoring the impact of pesticides on biodiversity and human health. When evaluating animal husbandry, greenhouse gas emissions are given too much weight in LCAs, the Planet-Score partners are convinced. Pasture-based livestock farming has advantages in terms of pesticide use, soil and water quality, carbon storage or biodiversity. In life cycle assessments, only the so-called feedlot models are compared.
