NFC carbon footprint project seeks retail and manufacturing partners

British supply chain management firm Juniper Innovations is calling on retailers and manufacturers to join a scheme which aims to allow consumers to check the carbon footprint of goods using an NFC device.

The Swindon-based company is supporting ISRetail in a project with the European Supply Chain Institute’s Supply Chain Carbon Council which is itself involved in a long-term project to develop ways of measuring the total carbon emissions created in the manufacture of an individual product.

The information collected could then be used by businesses to reduce their carbon footprints and would also be provided to consumers on product packaging so that they could take a product’s carbon footprint into account when making a purchasing decision.

With project partners now on board, ISRetail — a leading provider of warehouse management and supply chain management software — is looking for help from retail product manufacturers and retailers to help with the project.

John Connors from the Supply Chain Carbon Council said: “In the relatively near future you or I should be able to go to our local store and scan the RFID Carbon Label on the product with an NFC device to get its environmental impact data, and use this information to see whether it is environmentally friendly or not.

“In the end it will be the consumer who is the final decision maker as to whether the product is green or not.

“When the consumer scans the product the NFC reader will communicate with the master data over the mobile network and receive an SMS giving the information requested. This type of value-added application for NFC will really bring the technology away from the traditional focuses on payment and ticketing.

“We know that technically this application has no major barriers. Equally all retailers and manufacturers will also see the positives in terms of their green product labelling and NFC-based loyalty schemes.”

Any retail product manufacturer or retailer interested in participating in the project can contact Richard Knight by filling in the contact form on the Juniper Innovations website.

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