Environmental labels

The Blue Angel is a German eco-label for products and services [7]. The eco-label was introduced in 1978 and was one of the first worldwide environmental labels. The Blue Angel is an official label since it is owned by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in Germany. The award criteria are established by the Federal Environmental Agency in Germany with the support of scientific institutes and the industry. 

The ISO has also produced a set of quality standards specifically for environmental management. This is the ISO 14000 series. The areas addressed by ISO 14000 are Environmental Management Systems, Environmental Performance Evaluations, Environmental Auditing, Life Cycle Assessment, and Environmental Labeling. 

Consumers Union. 2003. Consumers Union Guide to Environmental Labels. Consumers Union, Yonkers, . Accessed 20/9/03. 

Federal Environmental Agency (2004) Development of a test method for investigations into limiting the emissions from printers and copiers within the framework of assigning the environmental label. Research Report 201 95 311/02. 

RAL-German Institute for Quality Assurance and Certification (2006) Basic criteria for the award of the environmental label. Office printing devices RAL-UZ-122. St. Augustin, Germany. 

Standards Australia [23] has established AS/NZS ISO 14021 2000, Environmental Labels and Declarations - Self-Declared Environmental Claims (type II environmental labelling). This Standard is an adoption with national modifications of ISO 14021 1999 and it specifies requirements applying to the development of environmental claims, expressed in either words or symbols, about products and services. The objective of the standard is to harmonise the various national guidelines on environmental claims used on product labels and in marketing generally, in order to facilitate trade in the global marketplace and to improve consumer confidence in environmental claims. 

Wik, A., Dave, G. (2005) Environmental labelling of car tires- toxicity to Daphnia magna can be used as a screening method. Chemosphere 58 645-651. 

ISO includes environmental management systems, environmental auditing, environmental labeling, environmental performance evaluation, and lifecycle assessment. It is a process rather than a performance-based system. 

Support life cycle based labeling schemes such as the European environmental label (see e.g. htqj //www.bau-umwelt.com, and EC Mandate M350 of the European Commission)... 

In order to achieve that objective a variety of tools - both voluntary and mandatory - can be used such as economic instruments (e.g., funding, fees), substance bans, voluntary agreements, environmental labelling and product design guidelines. The application of principles of hfe-cycle analysis for additives clearly indicates that raw materials, energy and pollution from renewable resources are preferred when compared to petrochemically based processes and products. 

G.A. Davis. The Use of Life Cycle Assessment in Environmental Labelling Programs. EPA/742-R-93-003, Washington, DC, Sept 1993. 

Vulcanised rubber has for many decades, been stabilised by p-phenylene diamines (PPD), as antioxidant and antiozonant. However, traditional PPD tend to migrate to the surface and discolour non-carbon black vulcanisates, as they are capable of extraction from the rubber and volatile. In general, all amine antidegradants are soluble in water and need special precautions and environmental labelling. 

ISO defines the voluntary environmental labelling in three classes (Mehta and Sridhar, 2009 Koszewska, 2011). 

The China Environmental Label was estabhshed in 1993 and provides environmental standards for constmction materials, textiles, vehicles, cosmetics, electronics, packaging and more (Url-39). 

The above definitional approaches indicate one of the primary aims of social and environmental labelling schemes is to make sustainable products more widely available and visible, and to convince consumers that by buying a specific group of products they contribute to measurable social and environmental benefits. From this perspective, labelling schemes can be deemed crucial to more efficient development of sustainable markets. 

The authors of the pertinent OECD document have highlighted the differences between ecological and environmental labels. In their view, eco-labels are different from the more general environmental labelling schemes in that they are voluntary and provide information on a wider range of issues, thereby offering a more complete picture of the environmental impact of a product. The definition the authors propose is the following eco-labels are voluntary labels which convey information to consumers about the environmental implications associated with all elements in the product s life , that is its production, distribution, use and disposal (Vitalis, 2002). 

The above implies that the narrowly understood ecological labels are (1) voluntary, (2) show the environmental impacts of a product to the consumer and (3) are preferably based on life cycle considerations and are verified by a third party (governmental and nongovernmental organisations). Because of these characteristics, they can be viewed as a subgroup of a wider category of environmental labels. 

Compared with environmental labels, social labels are relatively new and much fewer in number. Most of the currently used social labels were developed in the 1990s (Dickson, 2001), but origins of social labelling can be traced back to the White Label created in the US in 1899. The White Label was meant to assure consumers that women s and children s stitched cotton underwear was manufactured under decent working conditions and with no child labour. It was discontinued in 1918, when labels sponsored by trade unions guaranteeing manufacturer compliance with labour standards came into widespread use (Hilowitz, 1997). While some social labels also impose some requirements concerning the environmental protection, their focus is usually on workers rights, security and protection of work, the development of local community and fairer trade conditions (Koszewska, 201 lb). 

Environmental and social labels can also be classified using several of the above criteria at the same time, as it has been done by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO classification is one of the best known as far as environmental labelling is concerned. 

Type I (ecological label) is a voluntary, multiple-criteria-based, third-parly programme that awards a Ucence authorising the use of environmental labels on products, indicating overall environmental preferabiUty of a product within a product category based on Ufe cycle considerations. (ISO 14024)... 

Environmental labels emphasis on ecological criteria Sustainable labels holistic approach ecological social criteria Social labels emphasis on social criteria... 

The risk of misleading labels being used can be minimised by giving stronger emphasis to labels verified by a third party based on multiple criteria and life cycle considerations. The effectiveness of an environmental label as a countermeasure against greenwashing practices and a way to gain consumer trust depends on its ability to be truthful, easy to communicate and, finally, verifiable and accurate. 

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