I have a feature in the latest issue of Corporate Knights magazine called “Cows, carbon and you” that takes a look at whether carbon labelling of products would have an impact on purchasing behaviour in Canada and the United States. It’s being done to a limited extent in Europe, but would such an approach fly in North America?

It’s an interesting question: Would you, as a consumer, be more likely to purchase a product in a retail store if you knew the energy used to produce it could be guaranteed as zero- or low-carbon?

I know I buy unbleached coffee filters, low-salt cans of tuna and organic veggies because it matters to me, so it follows that some people would be swayed by carbon content. They might not pay more for it, but price being equal, it could give one product a competitive edge over another. On the other hand, is there really any room on product labels to fit this information? How would it be presented in a simple way that doesn’t confuse people? What standards are used to measure the carbon content of energy inputs? Can such a label be exact enough to matter?

BTW: Why the “cows” reference in the headline? That’s because I open the piece with a look inside the operations of Delft Blue, a veal farming company in Ontario that turns cow manure into electricity and heat. So, in a sense, Delft is supplying the market with low-carbon veal. It’s doing so because the capital investment lowers the cost of its farming operation and achieves payback in five or so years. However, its customers — Walmart, Loblaws, etc. — could choose to market the veal as low-carbon if they chose. At the moment, they don’t.

Just came back from a terrific and extremely humid evening at Toronto’s wonderful Evergreen Brick Works, a former brickyard made up of deteriorating heritage buildings that have been transformed into a showcase for urban sustainability. This includes several restored buildings (with graffiti left untouched) immersed in nature that together function as a community environmental centre — as well as the home of a local farmer’s market. It’s a wonderful achievement for the city, and a fitting venue for Corporate Knights’ “Summer Gala 2011.” Canada’s corporate sustainability magazine, or what it likes to call ”clean capitalism,” celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada ranking, and bestowed an Award of Distinction to the scrappy Danny Williams, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and the driving force behind the $6.2 billion Lower Churchill hydroelectric deal. Comedian and fellow Newfoundlander Rick Mercer introduced Williams with an entertaining tribute, and Williams himself gave a passionate and insightful speech about the challenges he faced trying to make the Lower Churchill project a reality. He also spoke of the need to push forward on the vision of establishing an east-west power grid that will deliver clean electricity across Canada, whether it be hydroelectricity from Labrador or wind from Ontario and Manitoba or geothermal power from B.C. and Alberta. It was a great speech that got me thinking about a book that needs to be written on this subject… some day.

It was also announced that Nick Parker, co-founder and (ex?)chairman of the Cleantech Group, has become chairman of Corporate Knights and together with founder and editor Toby Heaps will help create a new Council for Clean Capitalism. This new initiative will bring together influential voices from different corners of the corporate world as a single voice aimed at influencing policy outcomes that will drive social and environmental leadership in corporate Canada. It’s a recognition that if anything is going to tackle climate and environmental issues in this country — at least in any meaningful way — it will be progressive corporations. Our federal government is simply not filling this role.

Kudos to Toby for pulling it all together…

Green Party leader Elizabeth May got a chance recently to interview former prime minister Brian Mulroney about what it took to deal with the acid rain problem, and why we can’t seem to get the same kind of action today in Canada on the climate file.  The exclusive audio interview can be found on the Web site of Corporate Knights magazine. Mulroney wouldn’t directly comment on PM Harper, but he did indirectly suggest that Harper – through his obvious lack of leadership and action – has no regard for climate issues and has no intention of taking it on in any serious way.

Says Mulroney about the need to take leadership: “It has to be a top priority with the prime minister himself, and that’s important… He has to believe in it, obviously, and that’s the manner in which you galvanize the system.”

Harper’s actions make this clear: he doesn’t believe in it.

Mulroney said the cabinet, assistant deputy ministers, directors, senior advisors all walk to the drumbeat of the PMO. For them, he says, “We better be on our game 100 per cent because the boss is going to be here and he’s going to want to know what the hell is going on… That is the importance of the whole question of leadership.”

Added Mulroney later in the interview, “If one is confronted with a major challenge that has both domestic implications, combined with sophisticated and nuanced international problems that require a unique degree of cooperation to ensure that Canada is both a player and viewed as a constructive player internationally… it’s absolutely vital for the prime minister to drive the file… if the prime minister isn’t driving the file then nothing is going to happen… If he is, then it’s possible that big things will happen.”

Nothing, of course, is happening.

Mulroney was careful not to talk directly to the climate issue or Harper’s performance on that file, but it doesn’t take much to read between the lines.

Corporate Knights, Canada’s sustainable business magazine, crunched some recent numbers from Environment Canada and found that the country’s Top 10 industrial CO2 emitters reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 9 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007. At the same time, the Canadian economy grew by 0.5 per cent. Given that the impacts of the economic downturn were felt mostly in 2009, an even greater drop is expected this year. Canada’s Top 350 emitters reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 6 per cent during the same period. Toby Heaps, the magazine’s editor, said it’s proof that Canadian industry can meet carbon-reduction obligations while maintaining economic growth. “While our government says that reducing emissions by 20 per cent over 15 years is a heavy lift, our companies are showing the art of the possible: how almost half of that target can be pulled off in just one year,” said Heaps in a statement issued out of Copenhagen, where he attended the recent international climate talks. Corporate Knights is expected to have a more thorough analysis of the numbers in its January issue.

Ontario is pulling its weight, largely as a result of its coal-phaseout strategy, renewable energy deployment and conservation initiatives. As of the end of October 2009, greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel (coal and natural gas) power generation is down 40 per cent compared to same 10-month period the previous year, according to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator. What can we expect with the introduction of carbon prices and a cap-and-trade system?

A recent research brief of New Energy Finance looks to Europe for answers. It found that five years after the introduction of a greenhouse gas emissions-trading system the European power sector is factoring carbon prices into future investment decisions. It also found that carbon prices are pushing the sector toward lower-carbon sources of electricity and accelerating the closure of the oldest and dirtiest fossil-fuel plants. “The answer is clearly that European power generators see that the EU ETS is here to stay and that it is starting to affect how they make multi-billion euro investments in new generation capacity,” said Guy Turner, the research firm’s director of carbon market research. ”By 2020 the European generating fleet will be materially cleaner than it is today.”

Something to hope for? Let’s hope so. I’m more a fan of carbon taxes than cap-and-trade, but if the latter is designed correctly, and if we can learn off some of the early mistakes made by the Europeans, clearly it will drive emissions down. The question, then, will be how much it will drive them down, and whether it will be fast enough. That will ultimately depend on the price of carbon, and how many freebie carbon allowances are handed out to industry.