PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Carbon Emissions: Consumer Goods (16 November 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether emissions from goods produced abroad that are consumed within the UK will be included in the UK's net zero carbon emissions target.

Asked by:
Dame Harriett Baldwin (Conservative)

Measuring emissions associated with the production of goods and services consumed by the UK provides valuable insights, particularly in relation to policy on resource efficiency, and helpfully supplements the measurement of emissions generated within the UK’s borders. However, we do not plan to move to a system?primarily?based on?consumption?emissions as there is no internationally agreed approach to measuring these emissions. Estimates of imported emissions are associated with greater levels of uncertainty than estimates of UK-based territorial emissions.

The UK is at the forefront of measuring consumption emissions and developing policies to reduce them. Emissions on a consumption basis (including embedded in imports) fell by 21 per cent between 2007 and 2017. In addition, we believe that high standards of climate protection should be at the heart of global production and trade, and are committed to upholding our environmental standards and supporting global decarbonisation accordingly.

We constantly keep our policies under review. For example, the Government's Resources and Waste Strategy for England sets out its ambition to move from a make, take, use, throw linear economic model to a more circular economy which will reduce our carbon footprint from imported emissions through increasing repair, reuse, remanufacture and other waste prevention activities.

The Environment Bill includes measures that will help consumers to make purchasing decisions that support the market for more sustainable products. It contains powers to introduce clear product labelling, which will enable consumers to identify products that are more durable, reparable and recyclable and will inform them on how to dispose of used products.

Answered by:
Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative)
25 November 2020