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.

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…

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.

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.