Green labels and claims
"Green labels” – labels providing information about the environmental aspects of products or services – are becoming increasingly popular. These pages explain how they work.
How labelling works
Labelling is the simplest and most direct way of communicating information about a product to its purchasers.
There are many ways of providing information on labels. Manufacturers and others can make their own claims about products, or may participate in one of the many voluntary labelling schemes designed to highlight some special feature of a product. In some cases, companies are legally obliged to state certain information on products in prescribed formats.
There are green labelling schemes somewhere in the world for almost every type of product, from paper to paints, and cut flowers to cutlery. Many schemes cover the same types of products. There are also schemes for different types of environmental impacts, and for combinations of products and impacts. Good schemes provide an excellent way for companies to advertise to their customers that a product has achieved demanding environmental standards.
What labels cover
"Green labels" is used here mainly to apply to consumer assurance schemes using labels or logos with a recognisable environmental or sustainability strand. These can cover a range of issues, including protection of natural resources, biodiversity, and habitats, as well as minimisation of energy and water used in manufacturing, and restrictions on chemicals, emissions to air, water and soil, reduction of energy and water consumption in use, through to schemes reflecting policies on packaging, noise, waste management and recycling.
There is considerable overlap between different schemes, and some labels with a primarily ethical, social or agricultural theme also include environmental aspects. The European Commission's webpage about socially responsible consumption provides a useful guide to this wider context, and the policies underlying different kinds of labels.
Different kinds of labels address different needs. Some labelling schemes focus on a symbol, to identify a product as achieving the scheme’s high environmental standards; so these labels may be particularly suitable for instant communication with consumers, where the expectation is that the consumer will identify the symbol (and be encouraged to buy the product on account of it), but may not be seeking more information at the point of purchase about the product’s specific impacts.
An example is the European Ecolabel, the European Union’s prestige labelling scheme for consumer products and services, which uses a flower logo to signify that a product meets the scheme’s demanding environmental standards.
Other labels set out more detailed data about products in a standard easy-to-read format. These types of schemes may be especially useful for consumers or organisations wanting to make comparisons when buying. An example is the UK’s Fuel Economy Label for cars, which appears on all new cars in the UK.
Some companies prefer not to use labels, and instead use their own statements, particularly to reassure consumers about the increasingly important area of ethical issues. Defra has issued guidance in conjunction with other leading stakeholders about good practice on green claims.
Labelling policy
No single label covers all aspects of sustainability. There are several key sectors which lack widely recognised labelling schemes addressing the main environmental issues, or where existing labelling schemes do not meet market needs in other ways.
So there is room for a variety of labels and other approaches to address different needs. Even where several labels cover similar territory, a degree of choice can help industry. The first-rate schemes may obviously encourage better environmental standards, and can stimulate other certification organisations to improve their schemes or create better schemes.
New environmental labelling and certification initiatives are developed regularly, joining the range of good labels already visible in the market. Many of these respond to current concerns – for example, Rainforest Alliance announced plans in 2007 to create certification programs for sustainable production of soy, palm oil, sugar and other biofuel crops, as well as a climate change initiative to certify carbon offsetting projects.
Other new moves include the Carbon Trust’s own experimental Carbon Reduction Label which is currently being piloted on a number of products. The carbon footprint of the labelled products is measured using the draft Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 methodology, a single standard to measure the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a product or service.
This draft standard is being developed by the Carbon Trust and Defra in collaboration with BSI British Standards. Up to now there has been no straightforward form of labelling which can present an accurate picture of a product’s climate change impacts. Before agreement can be reached on final proposals about labelling, the crucial first step is to get a widely agreed method of measuring the greenhouse gas emissions which are "embedded" in a product before it reaches the consumer. The work by the Carbon Trust and BSI British Standards and Defra is aimed at establishing a method that can be used across a whole range of consumer items.
New developments
A new Quality Mark will start appearing on carbon offsetting products in 2008, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has announced, launching a landmark UK initiative for Government approved offsets.
The British Retail Consortium and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) consulted in 2007 about simplified on-pack labelling about recycling, to replace the current range of symbols and messages. The new scheme will be launched shortly.
Looking ahead
Standardised labelling raises practical issues, especially as many labelling schemes are privately run. In the near future it seems unlikely that there will be a widely available voluntary “über-label” scheme which addresses most environmental and ethical issues for most products, though individual companies may be able to tailor something like this for their own products. There could perhaps eventually be requirements for provision of environmental information on products, and for this to be displayed in a standardised way, as with food labelling, for example.
There will probably be increasing pressure on businesses to be able to justify the basis of “green claims”, as is gradually becoming the norm for other types of labelling (for example, with nutrition and health claims on food). More major companies have recently committed to green and ethical accreditation schemes such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade for well-known brands.
Traditional thinking has been that the sheer number of schemes or logos confuses consumers, but it may be that the key issue is really that consumers recognise logos for issues which are important to them, in the same way that they are easily able to distinguish between hundreds of other brands on a daily basis. Environmentally aware consumers will connect with energy labels and ecolabels, while vegetarians will recognise the special vegetarian symbols whereas other consumers may not.
As consumer expectations about products increase, good environmental labelling therefore looks set to remain one of the most useful and practical tools for helping consumers to make informed choices.
Further information
Page last
modified: 12 June 2008
Page published: 11 October 2005