Enabling developing countries to seize eco-label opportunities

This project is being implemented by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in association with local partners and co- funded by the EU (European Commission (EC) Programme on Environment in Developing Countries) & the Federal Ministry for the Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), German Ministry. The project is for a duration of four years and would be a collaborative work of UNEP, International and National Partners and Associates. Target countries are Brazil, China, India, Kenya, Mexico and South Africa. CUTS is the Indian partner of the project.

The overall objective is to increase the environmental efficiency of key export products and related industrial processes in the target countries by supporting the active contribution of industry and government to the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (Marrakech process). While the specific objective is to increase the number of products from target countries in EU as well as in their national and global markets eco-labelled with the EU Eco-label or other European countries’ ‘Type I’ environmental labels.

According to the International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO), ‘Type I environmental labels’ are “Voluntary, multiple-criteria based third party programmes that award a licence authorising the use of environmental labels on products. These indicate the overall environmental preferability of a product within a particular product category based on life cycle considerations. These labels provide qualitative environmental information” (ISO 14024: 1). The project focuses on this type of labels and thereinafter the ‘Type I environmental labels’ will be referred to as ‘eco-labels’.

Target groups under this project are:

Industry representatives and industrial designers of key target countries’ export product groups (appliances in China; textiles in India and South Africa;footwear in Mexico and Kenya; and product group to be decided in Brazil).

Government decision-makers in the target countries; and

European and local eco-labelling bodies.

Five main groups of activities envisaged are:

Background and Assessment

Capacity Building

Technical Assistance

Cooperation among Eco-labelling Schemes

Conclusion, Dissemination, and Basis for Project Replication

Coming Soon

Project Secretariat

UNEP DTIE

Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch

Contact Persons: Ms. Liazzat Rabbiosi, Programme Officer (unep.tie@unep.org)
Tel: + 33 (0)1 44 37 14 90;
Fax: + 33 (0)1 44 37 14 74

CUTS Research Team

Simi T B (stb@cuts.org), Pavitra Khandelwal (pk3@cuts.org)

CUTS Centre For International Trade, Economics & Environment
(CUTS CITEE)
D–217, Bhaskar Marg, Bani Park
Jaipur 302 016, India
Ph: +91.141.2282821
Fx: +91.141.2282485
Email: citee@cuts.org

The action, increasing the number of products from target countries in the EU as well as in their national and global markets eco-labelled with the EU or other European countries’ eco-labels, implemented through an integrated series of activities addressing a broad spectrum of stakeholders, will achieve a concrete number of results that will positively impact the target groups:

The action will, first of all, help improve understanding and knowledge on eco-labelling diffusion, market penetration, barriers and capacity building needs in target countries through the establishment of stakeholders’ dialogues in the countries.
Secondly, the action will strengthen capacity on eco-labelling and its application and promotion among key industry representatives, industrial designers and government decision-makers as well as local trainers in target countries.
In each target country, the action will lead to at least one product in the process of being awarded EU or another European country eco-label and to increased attention of government decision-makers to the question of promoting eco-labelling.
Parallel to the other result, the action will also develop a roadmap towards mutual recognition of eco-labelling schemes through increased cooperation among target countries’ and European eco-labelling schemes that will help to foster better transparency (such as product criteria, appliance rules etc.) between them.
Lessons-learnt from the project will be shared at regional and global level with as many potential users of eco-labels and eco-labelling bodies as possible, leading to maximised possibility of replication of the experience.
The EU eco-label and other European eco-labelling schemes could benefit from the lessons learnt of the project for the improvement of their schemes, and moreover will gain an increased reliability of their eco-labels as successful market instruments to promote environmentally-friendly products also in developing countries.
At the end of the action consumers in both the target countries and in Europe will benefit from the increase in the number of eco-labelled products enabling them to make informed decisions on the products they purchase based on the environmental performance over the life-cycle.
Improved environmental efficiency of the products will lead to better management of natural resources and decreased impacts on the environment and human health.