GECA CEO Rupert Posner joined his counterparts — 26 members from 60 countries — from the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) in Brussels this month to discuss issues regarding the labeling of sustainable products and services.
“This was a great opportunity to both learn and share global best practices for third party eco-certification,” he said.
GEN is a not-for-profit association of Type I ecolabelling organisations as defined by the ISO 14024 standard. GECA is the only Australian member of GEN. Type I programs are voluntary; their standards address multiple environmental criteria across the life cycle of the product or service and, most importantly, they are transparent in their development process and employ independent, third-party verification.
“There will be real benefits for our licensees as we look to align global standards and increase opportunities for mutual recognition. We are committed to increasing the sustainability of consumption. This means not just the continued development of world-class product standards but also providing added benefits for companies who have products certified with GECA. Through our membership of GEN we will have further opportunities to work together with the other leading third party certification programs from around the world.”
As well as those running ecolabels, also present were industry and other stakeholders including HP, UNEP and Janez Potoĉnik, Commissioner for Environment, European Commission and the Sustainability Consortium among others.
“With this gathering we celebrated the 20th anniversary of GEN,” said the network’s Chair, Robin Taylor, “and recommitted to maintaining an ongoing dialogue on reducing the environmental impacts of the products and services on the international market.”
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