January 30, 2008—Ecolabelling.org aims to take the mystery out of the bewildering herd of green labels by studying the foundations of all types of eco-labels aimed at both consumers and corporations.
The site, a project of the Vancouver-based Web developing company Big Room, looks at the sources of more than 260 different ecolabels from around the globe—labels covering everything from organic food to building products—with the intent of cutting out consumer confusion around green labeling schemes.
The team behind the Web site—Trevor Bowden, Jacob Malthouse and Anastasia O’Rourke—have backgrounds from the UN’s Environmental Program and environmental science, and decided that rather than develop yet another labeling standard for products, they would create a meta-index.
There are around 410 ecolabels or green certification systems that cover nearly 500,000 products worldwide, the team estimates, and through the Web site—and the help of visitors to the site—they hope to provide information about each of the labels.
