Migros labels cane sugar

Bio Max Havelaar cane sugar from Paraguay is the latest product in Migros „CO2-Champions” series. According to climatop, this sugar has the lowest climate impact of all six calculated sugar products, including a sugar from Switzerland.

Bio Max Havelaar’s climate impact is approximately 40% lower in comparison to domestic and German sugar. This is mainly due to the fact that the cultivation of sugar cane is much less energy- intensive than the cultivation of sugar beet. In addition, organic agriculture does not employ pesticides and machinery use is limited. The energy needed to process sugar cane in the factory is climate-neutral as it is extracted from sugar cane waste. The extensive cultivation and the abandonment of burning the fields before harvesting leads to a total environmental impact  much lower than in other sugar products - despite the longer distances. According to climatop, sugar cubes and crude sugar from Columbia also have better results in comparison to European sugar.

Third "CO2-Champion": Léger cream

Léger cream (with a fat content of 15 %) is the third Migros productto be awarded a CO2 label. According to the independent organization climatop, léger cream’s climate impact is 35 % lower than the average of Migros’ cream product range.

Climatop calculated the climate footprint of seven cream products. The best performer was the low fat cream léger. The climate impact in comparison to other cream products is approximatelyt 35 % lower and also clearly lower than the second best performer, Valflora cream (with a fat content of 25 %).

One litre of cream was used as a basis for comparison. Greenhouse gas emissions were measured for the whole lifecycle of the cream, that is from the production of the milk, including stock farming to the production of the cream itself and the transportation to the disposal of the packaging.

The World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development have launched a comprehensive stakeholder process for developing frameworks for assessing product and value-chain related greenhouse gas emissions. Development of the standard will take two years and is based on the previously introduced GHG Protocol for assessing corporate greenhouse gas emissions.

The first meeting of the Steering Committees took place 10 September 2008 in Washington, D.C., and defined the basic objectives and prepared the groundwork for the Technical Working Groups.