WHY AN INDEPENDENT ECO LABEL?

“Environmental Labelling” mean the use of labels in order to inform consumers that a labelled product is environmentaly more friendly relative to other products in the same category. The criteria for the award of such labels, for an overall assessment of the ecological impact of a good during its life cycle, including production, distribution, use, consumption as well as disposal. Therefore, ecolabels differs from “Single Issue Labels” which address only one environmental quality of a product, for instance, bio-degradability. They also differ from “negative labels” containing warnings indicating that the use of the product may be dangerous such as health warnings on cigarette packs. Ecolabel serves as a promotion instrument.

Governments and Ecological interest groups tend to support ecolabelling schemes since the promotional effect of a level sets incentives for producers to improve the environmental qualities of their products. Thus ecolabelling programmes aim to protect the environment through raising consumer awareness about the environmental effects of the products and hence changing the manufacturing design of products in favour of environment friendly products and technologies.