Environmental challenges have been the most pressing issue humanity is facing today. While the world is facing the effects of global warming, Logitech has announced an adoption of an industry-first carbon transparency effort to include detailed carbon impact transparency labelling on all product packaging across its entire portfolio. Until now, the carbon impact has not been visible to consumers looking to better understand their impact on the environment. With this initiative, Logitech’s carbon transparent labelling will quantify the impact, communicate it to consumers, and further empower them to make more informed purchasing decisions.
Srinivas Rao, Country Head of Logitech India talked to India CSR‘ Rusen Kumar about the initiative and shared the vision behind it. Read excerpts:
What has been the brand’s vision behind including carbon impact labels on its products and What are you hoping to achieve with this program?
Back in June of 2020, we announced an industry-first carbon transparency effort to include detailed carbon impact transparency labelling on all product packaging across our entire portfolio. Like nutrition labels on food packaging, we believe that consumers should be empowered and informed about the impact of their purchasing decisions. Think of carbon as the new calorie.
Until now, the carbon impact has not been visible to consumers looking to better understand their impact on the environment. With this initiative, Logitech’s carbon transparent labelling will quantify the impact, communicate it to consumers, and further empower them to make more informed purchasing decisions. Being a part of an industry, which is heavily reliant on plastics & electronics, we are committing to carbon transparency because we are consistently decreasing our product carbon footprint by continually designing for sustainability. We want to be held accountable.
How is Logitech encouraging other companies to include carbon impact labels?
Creating transparency around the carbon footprint of a company’s products is an important step towards reducing greenhouse gases. Therefore, in the fight against climate change, we are voluntarily disclosing product carbon footprint information and providing online access to the methodology and protocol applied so that other brands can also get a head start on their own sustainability initiatives and carbon transparency. Our hope is that by opening up our learnings and the expertise we have developed, it will encourage others to follow and build on our body of work for the betterment of the planet.
How many products do you sell a year? It’s great they’ll have transparent carbon impact labelling, but what about all that product waste?
We sell products across more than 100 countries worldwide which means we have a big responsibility toward our consumers and the environment. This responsibility also brings along a big opportunity for us to make a positive impact.
For many years we have been quietly building and ramping up our sustainability efforts – designing for sustainability, global recycling, conflict materials, energy and climate actions. We support and finance end-of-life recycling schemes across the world. Since 2010, we have financed recycling of more than 50,000 tonnes of electrical devices, batteries, and packaging. And we actively work to eliminate waste and make products more circular.
What do you mean by ‘design for sustainability’ and how do you do this?
We are a design company. Designing for sustainability is Logitech’s way of applying design principles to look for ways to reduce the impact its products have on the environment throughout the design process. We have established in-house capability to undertake Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies of our products. The environmental impact of our products is considered at each stage of the product development cycle, alongside cost, user experience and technical feasibility. This enables objective and data-informed decision-making on material and process impacting product sustainability.
For instance, we have a voluntary PVC-Free Policy, to phase out PVC in packaging and new products. The Logitech G Pro Gaming Mouse is lightweight and has a 1 mm thin wall and through a novel endoskeleton design, it is 28% lighter and uses 19% less plastic than its predecessor, the Logitech G900. Last year, we developed three new Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic resins and launched our first three products, using those resins. We also marked the launch of our first product with FSC-certified packaging last year.
What all products will include carbon impact labels and when will they be available?
We are excited to report that the Logitech G PRO Wireless Gaming Mouse is the first Logitech product to feature this new carbon impact label and will be soon available in India. Logitech G PRO Wireless Gaming Mouse is one of six gaming products with carbon impact labels rolling out in this quarter. It features a number at the top of the label that indicates the product’s full lifecycle carbon footprint in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent.
(CopyRight@Rusen Kumar/India CSR)
