Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to The Independent on 14 July that they hoped to use the Environment Bill “to seek powers to ensure information about environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions, is provided with certain products”, whether they can (1) provide details of the means by which they plan to do this, and (2) list the products to which they expect to apply the powers.

In accordance with our Resources and Waste Strategy, the powers being sought through our Environment Bill will allow the Government to ensure consumers are provided with clear, consistent and trustworthy information, enabling them to make more sustainable purchasing decisions and helping shift the market towards more resource efficient products. These information-sharing requirements may focus on durability, reparability and recyclability, and there is scope to include other criteria where appropriate, such as embodied carbon or water usage during production. They could take a number of different forms such as consumer information rating schemes, or labels specifying that a product meets a certain environmental standard.

We are working on developing a plan for making use of these powers, and will take on board responses to our recent consultation on the Waste Prevention Programme for England – towards a resource efficient economy. In parallel, as outlined in the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is preparing to launch a Call for Evidence on low carbon industrial products. The response to the Call for Evidence will be used to develop proposals for new policies to grow the market for these products, including a new labelling system for intermediary industrial products reflecting their impact on the environment.