Displaying Dynamic Carbon Footprints of Products on Mobile Phones

Several brand owners are calculating the carbon footprint of sample products and intend to make the information available to their consumers as a label on the product. A physical label on the items or on the retail shelf will not be flexible enough to show the carbon footprint because of the dynamic nature of carbon emissions and the potential difference in footprint between instances of the same product. In this demonstration, we show an alternative to a static physical label, namely an NFC-enabled mobile phone that displays the carbon footprint of tagged products. In addition to demonstrating the dynamic nature of carbon footprints, our prototype shows how consumers can be empowered with knowledge about the products they buy.