Who Sets the Standards for Ecolabels?
It is common practice to rely on third-party ecolabels to define environmental criteria for particular purchasing categories. Ecolabels provide third-party verification of the environmental and social standards related to a particular product or service category and can be used to reduce the onus of creating environmental criteria. By understanding how to identify a mature and credible ecolabel purchasers can rely on these pre-determined criteria and simply specify that the product or service in question carry this ecolabel, removing the burden of developing criteria.
There are over 350 ecolabels in the global marketplace so it important to understand how to identify mature and credible ecolabel standards, as all are not created equally. There are three main international expert sources that provide definitions of different types of ecolabels and set out parameters for developing high quality ecolabels that consumers can trust. The following provides an introduction to these organizations and briefly describes their efforts to set international parameters for ecolabelling.
International Parameters for Ecolabels: Key Organizations and Definitions
The following organizations have set international definitions and parameters for ecolabels:
- Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN)
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
- ISEAL Alliance
Global Ecolabelling Network
GEN is a non-profit association of third-party environmental performance recognition, certification and labeling organizations founded in 1994 to improve, promote and develop the ecolabelling of products and services. GEN defines different types of ecolabels, categorizes existing ecolabels, and sets generic environmental criteria for specific product and service categories. As a membership based organization, GEN provides assurance that member organizations are meeting their parameters for ecolabelling.
For more detail visit: http://www.globalecolabelling.net/whatis.html
International Organization for Standardization
ISO is the world’s largest developer and publisher of international standards. It brings together a network of national standards institutes from 159 countries to build consensus of global standard setting. In particular, they have created the ISO 14020 series of standards that define parameters for developing environmental labels and declarations. This series includes ISO 14024, 14021 and 14025, which define the parameters for Type I, II, and III ecolabels, respectively.
For more detail visit: http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=34425
ISEAL Alliance
ISEAL is a global association for social and environmental standards. It works with established and emerging voluntary standard systems to develop guidance and strengthen the effectiveness of these standards. They also work with companies, non-profits and governments to support their referencing and use of voluntary standards. They have developed Codes of Good Practice that are applied to leading standards systems and are an ISEAL membership requirement. As a membership based organization, ISEAL provides assurance that member organizations are meeting their parameters for ecolabelling.
For more detail visit: http://www.isealalliance.org/content/codes-good-practice
