When ecolabeling a product, what kind of requirements are there to ensure that the label provider has done its due diligence in determining the "greenness" of a product?
With more and more accusations of greenwashing, a product development professional or marketer has to be certain that the company he/she is working with has gone through the necessary 3rd party verification processes to ensure that their label is recognized as legitimate.
Ironically, many companies may simply be too "green" to be fully aware of the current available standards that exist to help validate ecolabels.
ISO Standards 14020 and 14024 are the current international standards for environmental labeling programs. Companies like Global Ecolabelling Network can be used as a third-party to review the standards developed. The main requirements of the ISO standards are that the product is evaluated using lifecycle analysis and each standard is given a chance to be critiqued by stakeholder input in the form of public forums online or in person.
The Center for Sustainability and Excellence is a company that has served many companies' products and operations to assess the lifecycle of both products and operations. They have developed specialized in-house lifecycle assessment procedures that has been developed with the guidance of internationally recognized methodologies, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, ISO 14040 & 14042, Environmental
Protection Agency’s LCA Inventory Guidelines and Principles, and the prominent WRI GHG Protocol.
For more information on the services CSE can provide for you or the company you represent, please contact kikos@cse-net.org or visit cse-net.org.
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