Eco-labels and Green Stickers are labeling systems for food and consumer products. Ecolabels are voluntary, but green stickers are mandated by law; for example, in North America major appliances and automobiles use Energy Star. They are a form of sustainability measurement directed at consumers, intended to make it easy to take environmental concerns into account when shopping. Some labels quantify pollution or energy consumption by way of index scores or units of measurement; others simply assert compliance with a set of practices or minimum requirements for sustainability or reduction of harm to the environment.

Ecolabelling systems exist for both food and consumer products. Both systems were started by NGOs, since then the European Union have developed legislation for conduct of ecolabelling and also have created their own ecolabels, one for food and one for consumer products. At least for food, the ecolabel is nearly identical with the common NGO definition of the rules for ecolabelling. Trust in the label is an issue for consumers, as manufacturers or manufacturing associations could set up "rubber stamp" labels to greenwash and fake ecolabelling their products. High trust levels are created when ecolabels apply for Governmental recognition as formal Certification Marks [recognised by logos or names with 'CTM', CM or 'CertTM']. Typically this means schemes approved as a Certification Mark, have had the Government Department responsible declare that the scheme has a Standard and Certifiers that are 'Competent to Certify'. The highest trust levels would be a Government recognised Certification Mark that was also compliant with key ISO standards especially ISO 14024- Type 1 Ecolabels and that undertake ISO 14040 compliant life cycle analysis as part of their assessment.

Contents [hide]
1 ISO Participation
2 Environmental governance
2.1 Sustainable Initiatives
3 History
4 Programs by region
4.1 Canada
4.2 United States
4.3 European Union
4.4 Northern Europe
4.5 ASEAN
4.6 Australasia
5 Seafood
5.1 Marine Stewardship Council
5.2 Friend of the Sea
6 Sustainable timber
7 Energy labels
8 Green Labels Links
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
ISO Participation[edit]
The last few years have seen a two key trends in the ecolabels space. There is an explosion in the numbers of different ecolabelling programs across the world and across business sectors and secondly the proliferation of umbrella labeling programs. The International Organization for Standardization ISO has created standards for labeling practices within the ISO 14000 schema. ISO 14020 to 14025 series deals with environmental labels and declarations.

Environmental governance[edit]
Consumer desires for sustainable consumption is driving the global marketplace to regulate product production. The globalization of economies is shifting control of sustainability away from traditional command and control measures imposed by governments towards market governance which is a self-regulatory new environmental policy instrument, ecolabelling.[1][2]

In terms of ecolabeling, both certification and private standardization run parallel. Eco-labeling standardization is a new form of regulation which is voluntary in nature, but impose upon large companies using market forces in order to harmonize production of goods and services with environment. Recently, it has turned into a new form of non-state authority at both national and international levels. This idea of entrepreneurial democracy [3] based on the success of the ISO 14000 standards on the management of environmental quality and the ISO 9000 standards on quality production control. Once an industry sector decides to get this certification, it has to provide evidences of documented proof of compliance required. In terms of ISO 14042 standard, it is obligatorily for all applicants to respect environmental legislation and related legislation; breaching of any laws will result in