Clothing companies begin to print carbon emissions

Darkfrog submitted, created time 8 months 4 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

Some clothing companies are beginning to list on the tag estimates of the carbon emissions that were generated from the creation of each garment. A jacket may have been designed in New York out of fabric invented in Japan and then assembled in Europe or Asia, shipped to a distribution facility -- these things really get around.

So far, shoppers haven't had much reason to buy clothes that were made locally because they usually cost more. I see these tags as potentially as transformative as the nutrition labels that showed up on our food in the early 1990s. Maybe people don't eat less saturated fat now, but they know what saturated fat is.

This might just be a fad, but I have to hand it to Patagonia and other companies for taking the risk. Many shoppers will probably knee-jerk-react that an unlabeled pair of pants produces less carbon waste than a labeled one (Of course, they could sidestep the problem by writing "Our jacket: 15 lbs carbon: industry standard: 20 lbs.)

Keywords: carbon emissions economics science and culture clothing pollution