From A on a green background for the most virtuous products to E on a red background for dunces… Consumers are now used to this rating with the Nutriscore, which judges the nutritional quality of food products.
In recent years, several players in the food industry have launched a similar system, this time to inform about their environmental impacts.
It is the Eco-Score or the Planet-Score that you may have already come across on the shelves.
However, it is not easy to make several displays coexist.
This is all the work undertaken by the government, which wants to launch an official method by the end of the year.
A vast construction site.
A BVA survey published this Thursday identifies the expectations of the French on the subject.
“It is necessary to give [consumers] appropriate information to make them aware of the impact of their choices in order to guide them towards more virtuous practices.
This observation by the Citizens' Convention for the Climate gave rise to the first of their 149 proposals submitted to Emmanuel Macron, in June 2020, to accelerate the reduction of French CO2 emissions.
These 150 citizens drawn by lot advocated an obligation to display carbon on products and services.
On the model of the nutriscore (which evaluates the nutritional quality of a product) affixed to the packaging and which would provide information on the CO2 emissions generated by the product throughout its life.
The idea will be taken up in the Climate and Resilience law.
It is article 2 which provides for the creation of an ecoscore, the equivalent of a note providing information on the environmental impact - not only climatic therefore - on food products.
Essential for 86% of French people
For 86% of French people, this environmental score is considered essential, indicated Thursday a BVA survey for the collective En Vérité.
The players in the food industry would not all be equally opposed to it, quite the contrary.
This collective "In truth" brings together 60 brands that campaign for more transparency in their sectors.
“Evaluating the environmental value of a product is almost an impossible mission today, regrets Sébastien Loctin, its founder.
We are confronted either with a lack of information, or with the beautiful marketing stories of the brands, or with a profusion of labels (more than 400 to date).
This vagueness does not allow brands that do things well to be rewarded for their efforts.
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It remains to set up this environmental score.
Experiments have already been launched.
You may have already come across the “Eco-score” created in January 2021 by nine food players (Yuka, Marmiton, Foodcherie, Seazon, etc.) on the shelves.
Or the "Planet-Score", which will see the light of day a little later and created by the Institute of organic agriculture and food (Itab).
These two displays, tested today on several thousand references, have similarities.
That, for example, of restoring the environmental score on a note that goes from A on a green background to E on a red background, like the nutriscore.
Another common point: Agribalyse, a public database developed by Ademe and which measures the environmental impact of thousands of food products, reasoning in terms of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).
In short: the environmental impacts at all stages of the product's life, from farm to fork, are taken into account.
This is the starting point for the two displays, which each then completes in their own way, by adding other criteria in the calculation of the overall score.
Find the official posting
But imagine the mess if several methods coexist.
The whole point is to come up with an official display that everyone agrees on, both on the calculation method and on how to clearly report the results to consumers.
This is all the work undertaken by the State, with the objective of having it in place by the end of this year.
“This requires that a first proposal be put on the table in the coming months for it to be discussed, criticized by all the actors concerned”, specifies Pascal Dagras, who is working on this file at the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
The task is not simple.
This BVA study attests to this by having sought to better identify the expectations of the French, by testing them with the Planet-Score.
This display has the particularity not only of restoring the overall score (from A to E therefore), but adds, below, the evaluation of the product in three sub-categories: biodiversity, pesticides and climate (carbon impact).
More information, in the right corner, on the mode of breeding.
Rather well seen?
The BVA study concludes in any case that a "display will begin to be truly interesting from the moment they are based on concrete and precise indicators", retains Régis Olagne, customer manager at BVA who supervised the study. .
The first acclaimed by the French is the non-use of pesticides, cited by 39% of respondents.
"Relying on concrete indicators" at the risk of oversimplifying the issues?
“But when we ask about these last three indicators, we realize that the proportion of those able to detail the concrete commitments they expect behind is relatively low, continues Régis Olagne.
And the answers given overlap from one indicator to another, a sign that they are perhaps not specific enough.
This is much less the case for the non-use of pesticides and the breeding method, which seem to speak much more to respondents.
"There are more respondents able to detail these two indicators and the answers they give are more specific to the subject", continues Régis Olagne.
This is the whole recommendation that En Vérité then addresses to the State: that the future environmental display responds well to the inspiration of clear information on the criteria that are most important to the hearts of the French", calls the collective in a statement.
The use of pesticides and the breeding method therefore, but also the origin, adds the collective, the study having shown that this is an important criterion guiding the choice of the French in their consumption.
However, be careful not to oversimplify the issues?
“The use or not of pesticides, the breeding method or the origin provide information on how the products were made, recalls Pascal Degras.
But integrating the impacts they have on biodiversity, the climate or resources throughout their life [during transport for example] is just as essential.
There is therefore no question of choosing one and not the other.
“It's not easy, of course, recognizes Pascal Degras.
The whole question is to know how we articulate, in the methodology, these two levels of issues: how we produce and how we impact.
The reflection continues.
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