News and events published on the EcoAP Community Platform

• Effective recycling can provide more phosphorus to plants than fertilisers
• European Commission launches €3m prize to improve air quality in cities
• New EBAE Finalist success stories

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been analysing the evolution of environmental labels for more than 15 years. Currently, a project is underway to ascertain whether and how the recent rapid growth in labelling schemes might affect the overall environmental effectiveness of schemes and their implications for international trade.

Ecolabelling in the spotlight ahead of the 18th European Forum on Eco-innovation

Ecolabelling is a growth industry. The Ecolabel Index directory currently tracks more than 450 ecolabels spread across 197 countries. An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development analysis from 2013 found that the number of labels increased roughly fivefold between 1988 and 2009.

An eco-label from Catalonia, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2014, seeks to promote goods and services from the region by highlighting their environmental credentials. The eco-label, the Emblem of Guarantee of Environmental Quality, was established in 1994 by the Catalan regional government's ministry of environment and housing. Initially, the label applied only to products, but in 1998 it was extended to services. It has gone on to cover services as diverse as office buildings, libraries and museums, vehicle fleet management services and tourism-related services.

The Swedish eco-label Good Environmental Choice (Bra Miljöval) is a well-established, independent scheme that aims to guide consumers to the products that are least harmful to the environment. Like other labels, it can be applied to consumer goods, such as clothing and chemical products. But unlike many labels, the Good Environmental Choice mark also applies to some of the utilities and services that are central to modern life.