Helping the environment as a consumer is not easy.

With rising temperatures in Germany and more periods of drought, my wife and I planned to add two rain barrels to our garden. We want to store rainwater and reduce the consumption of fresh water.

The production of barrels likely requires fresh water. So, before buying one, I wanted to make a rough calculation, estimate the freshwater savings by one barrel, and relate it to the freshwater need of a new barrel. Sometimes, the water need can be surprising, as mentioned in the April issue, with 1,400 litres of water needed to produce 250g of butter. So, I assume a company praising water as a precious resource can tell me how much of this treasure is consumed for a new product.

I did the same for solar panels. While screening providers that sell and mount photovoltaic systems, I asked the salespeople about the carbon emissions caused by the production of all the hardware. Reducing carbon emissions is the paramount political motivation to drive the shift towards renewable energy. Naively, I thought PV providers could not only help me estimate the economic profitability of such a system but also the environmental profitability.

I was wrong.

Neither in the rain barrel nor in the solar system case were the companies able to provide me with information about the resource consumption of their products. How can I make environmentally sound decisions if I do not get the necessary data?

The rain barrel company admitted that they are in the process of collecting this information right now. Thank you, European Green Deal. The solar panel companies did not bother. However, a research study by the Fraunhofer Institute states that the carbon break-even is—on average—reached in year 2 after installation. In the case of the rainwater barrel, I did not find any realistic estimation.

Some companies already inform customers about the elements of resource consumption of their products:

• Oatly, a Swedish oat milk company, prominently displays the carbon footprint of its products on their packaging.
• Carbonfact, a French software company, helps organisations to measure, report and reduce carbon footprint, which includes a badge with product-related carbon information that can be added to product pages of webshops.
• Car Parts Industries, a Belgium company that remanufactures and supplies automotive spare parts, has published the results of comparative Life-Cycle-Assessment for all eight of their product groups.

Evidently, many companies are currently collecting the data to make such statements as part of their efforts to become CSRD-compliant or meet their customers’ reporting requirements.

This data will likely become available on a product level in the next years. Resource consumption will be an additional buying criterion as soon as this happens.

Companies that start early to reduce resource consumption will have a competitive edge. This will save resources and costs — a win for the planet, companies, and customers.