Persil whiter than white but sweets come unstuck in green index

12 April 2012

A new "eco-index" charting the environmental impact of Britain's favourite groceries has crowned Persil laundry powder the greenest supermarket product and Haribo sweets the worst.

Researchers evaluated 100 products on a range of green issues, including packaging, airmiles, fairtrade ingredients, use of energy and resources and how clear the company's environmental policy was to shoppers.

Persil, which is owned by Unilever, came top of the league for "taking steps to minimise the environmental impact of every aspect of the product's life", according to the scoring system devised by environmental consultancy EnvirUP.

Another of the company's brands, PG Tips, came second for responsibly sourcing tea and green packaging that provided detailed information on carbon targets.

A box of Quality Street sweets, with its compostable packaging, also made the green top 10.

Haribo came bottom because the researchers said the company appeared to have no environmental policy and did "nothing to demonstrate it understands its environmental impact".

Muller yoghurts came second from bottom for "lack of environmental thinking in delivering products, no consideration of carbon emissions or environmental labelling".

The EnvirUP Green Index Report uses 48 questions to cover all areas of environmental sustainability and the overall score was linked to an A to G grade, similar to the energy performance of domestic appliances. None of the brands was judged to be green enough to achieve A and B grades overall.

EnvirUP found all the brands performed particularly badly on packaging, with over 60 per cent of products scoring grades E to G. Researchers said Pringles crisps were the worst because their foil-coated cardboard tubes are impossible to recycle.

The greenest soft drink was Volvic, while Pepsi ranked higher than Coca Cola because of proactive green policies.

Redbull lost its wings at number 91 because it does not have any environmental initiatives beyond recycling the can.

Pet owners were advised to choose Bakers and Felix ahead of Pedigree and Whiskas because of over-packaging.

EnvirUP founder Assim Ishaque said: "Consumers are more interested in a product's green credentials nowadays. Many brands have caught on to the green' trend but some have clearly missed the demand."

Winners and sinners in the eco-stakes

Top 10
1. Persil Laundry
2. PG Tips
3. Finish
4. Volvic
5. Kellogg's Special K
6. Surf
7. Ribena
8. Quality Street
9. Ariel
10. Evian

Bottom 10
91. Red Bull
92. Clover Spreads
93. Richmond Sausages
94. John West Canned Fish
95. Warburtons
96. Young's Chilled Fish
97. Cathedral City
98. Muller Corner
99. Muller Light
100. Haribo Gums & Jellies

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