Do Environmental Labels Matter?
Created By RISC | 1 year ago
Last modified date : 1 year ago
Consumers are beginning to pay more attention to the environment and choosing more eco-friendly items. So how do we know which items are best?
ISO, or International Standardization and Organization, has established environmental labeling guidelines for purchasing products:
Category 1: ISO 14024:1999 for products that have passed quality and environmental tests conducted by a group without the involvement of a third party using the Life Cycle Consideration technique, such as the Thailand Environment Institute's Green Label.
Category 2: 2001 ISO 14021 with environmental values represented by the manufacturers. This form of label is not supervised by a central organization.
Category 3: ISO 14025: 2006 a guideline for labels that describe how products affect the environment by evaluating the effects over the course of their lives (Life Cycle Assessment). A third party or central organization, such as the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), verifies the correctness of the information on this label.
To make it simple, EPD is a label that lists the product's contents, how it was made, how much energy it used, how waste was handled after use, and the environmental impact of the product throughout its whole life. A further advantage for consumers is the ability to compare data from EPD while making decisions, guaranteeing that the products have a lower environmental impact.
Story by Woraporn Poonyakanok, Senior Research Engineer Acting Head of Resilience Research Hub at RISC
References:
https://packaging.oie.go.th/new/admin_control_new/html-demo/file/2305416789.pdf
https://www.wazzadu.com/article/6665