Cleaner Technology Projects in Denmark 1997
Environmental Informative Labels
Miljøvaredeklarationer
Arbejdsrapport nr. 47, 1997, Miljøstyrelsen
The main purpose of the project is to make a qualified discussion about Environmental Informative Labels. Some see Environmental Informative Labels as an alternative to Eco-labels while others mean informative labels can be seen as a supplement to Eco-labels. In this report suggestions are made on how to direct the Environmental Informative Labels towards private consumers and professional users and which parameters in so doing should be used. Different ways of creating an Environmental Informative Label are also discussed in the report.
Environmental Informative Labels differ from Eco-labels in being neutral, i.e. Environmental Informative Labels do not contain recommendations, but communicate information and give the user the opportunity to evaluate and compare products. Environmental Informative Labels and Eco-labels can be expected to complement each other and address different consumer-groups.
The study has identified two target groups for Environmental Informative Labels: The professional users and the private consumers. These two groups have very different demands and consequently the study gives proposals on two different labels for the two target groups.
An Environmental Informative Label has to report the main environmental impacts of the product. Looking at the whole product life cycle "from cradle to grave can do this". Environmental Informative Labels therefore have to be based on life-cycle assessments (LCA). It was decided to design a generic label, i.e. an Environmental Informative Label for all types of products. The alternative is a different label for each product category, but this will confuse the users and make it impossible to compare products belonging to different product categories.
It was also decided that the labels must relate to a functional unit per year instead of just relating to the product. In this way, it is possible to compare products with different life spans.
First the relevant environmental indices were identified. Based on these, a proposal for an Environmental Informative Label for the professional users was prepared.
Finally, the proposal for an Environmental Informative Label for the private consumers was prepared. During this process, a number of environmental impacts were aggregated leading to a reduction in the number of indices.
The following indices were identified as relevant in Environmental Informative Labels: resource consumption, climate change, ozone layer depletion, acidification, photochemical ozone creation, eutrophication and oxygen depletion, waste storage, toxicity and unwanted chemicals.
In acknowledgement of the fact that working environmental impacts are very difficult to quantify over a life cycle, only chemical impacts are included under the indices: Toxicity and unwanted chemicals. Other impacts in the working environment, e.g. noise, ergonomics, repetitive monotonous work, are therefore not included.
The label for the professional users is based on the indices mentioned above. The impacts are stated for the part of the life cycle until the manufactures exit-gate, and for the whole life cycle. The point of stating the former is that buyers of intermediate products then get the opportunity of combining the information in the label with their own more specific information about the latter parts of the life-cycle.
In addition to the indices the label also contains more qualitative information related to the manufacturer:
 | Name of product and manufacturer |
| Information on life span and functional unit |
| Environmental approval (authority and date) |
| Environmental management systems, including environmental policy, quality management, etc. |
| Relevant information on the working environment |
| Directions for use, maintenance and disposal |
| Persons responsible for preparing and verifying the label |
The label for the private consumers has to be educational and comprehensible - also in rather busy situations. This is accomplished by using few but adequate indices.
Six indices are used in the proposal and they are the result of weighed aggregation of the ten most important indices out of the indices used in the label for the professional users.
Furthermore, the six parameters all relate to the yearly impact of an average person - the resulting unit of measure being Personal Equivalents. This normalisation supports the consumers’ assessment.
The parameters are: energy consumption, consumption of material and resources, climate, air pollution, water pollution, waste and unwanted chemicals.
The project discusses some organisational and administrative problems in connection with different Environmental Informative Labelling systems.
In the near future it will be relevant to begin working on the establishment of an authorised method on how to prepare Environmental Informative Labels. At the same time it must be considered within which framework the administration, approval and control should be, and how the experts and the interested parties best can be involved in the preparation of regulations and directions.
Having some kind of control in the system spot checks or external verification will be necessary. Without any control it will be impossible for the users, the authorities and the competitors to see if the reported index values are calculated according to established rules.
Author/ institution
Jørgen D. Toldsted, Heidi K. Stranddorf og Lisbeth E. Hansen, dk-TEKNIK
This report is subsidised by the National Council for Recycling and Cleaner Technology
ISSN no. 0908-9195
ISBN no. 87-7810-815-2