Low footprint dolls? French retailer King Jouet labels toys with straightforward eco-score

Carbon labels are becoming an increasingly common element in product descriptions, especially for food and travel. But what about toys...? King Jouet, a leading French toy retailer, recently introduced a 'Jouet Score,' just in time for the holiday shopping season. The new rating system aims to encourage eco-friendly toy consumption by evaluating toys based on three criteria: materials, packaging and manufacturing location.

Each toy receives a score between 1 and 5, with higher scores indicating a greater level of eco-responsibility. For example, a toy made in France of FSC-certified wood that is minimally packaged would rack up more points. Currently, King Jouet displays a Jouet Score for most toys in their Christmas catalog — notably, it didn't label items with a score lower than 2 — with plans to extend ratings to all in-store and online products. The retailer acknowledges its system's limitations: the score mainly focuses on design aspects and doesn't capture a toy's total environmental impact like a life-cycle assessment would.