Ecolabeling

Beginning in 1978, various countries started volun¬tary national product ecolabeling programs based on environmental-impact assessment criteria. To increase uniformity in European countries, the European Union authorized a voluntary ecolabeling scheme for “envi¬ronmental excellence” in the 1990s. In order to provide global standards for environmental labeling procedures, the International Organization for Standardization defined the ISO 14020 series of environmental labels and declarations. Ecolabeling is both a benchmarking tool for assessing enterprise sustainability performance and a fundamen¬tal guide to consumer choice in terms of the eco-efficiency of a process, product, or service. Besides being an acknowl¬edged communication tool for promoting management strategies on an environmental and social scale, ecolabel¬ing is also a marketing tool. The complexity and rapid diffusion of socioenviron¬mental issues has created new challenges in production and consumption sectors in terms of adequate strategies for promoting ecological and social product compatibility and encouraging more purchase-conscious models. This approach has resulted in the proliferation of tools at inter¬national, national, and European levels that contribute to sustainability initiatives from an economic, environmental, and ethical perspective (i.e., the triple bottom line approach coined by John Elkington in 1994). Ecolabeling programs can become an effective driving force in the transition process towards ecosustainability when current critical elements are eliminated. The main critical factor is undoubtedly consumer disorientation that results from the vast range of environmental label¬ing systems available on the market. This factor, unfor¬tunately, affects numerous sectors including tourism, which in recent years has seen the eruption of ecolabel¬ing certification programs and procedures characterized by very different content and impact in many areas of the world.