• Non-trade standards
• NTS and environment
• NTS and SPS

Non-trade standards

This report reviews what is known about ecolabelling as an environmental policy tool and as a potential trade barrier. It focuses on five well-known ecolabelling programmes that incorporate environmental requirements: the Blue Angel programme in Germany, and the programmes associated with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

The report’s ultimate aim is to identify specific issues and policy integration challenges that need to be addressed if ecolabels are to be designed and applied in ways that support sustainable development – balancing environmental, social and economic outcomes. In the report it is demonstrated that considerable additional data collection and research needs to be undertaken if the effects of ecolabelling are to be understood and policy recommendations developed.

Findings of the report include:

• research on (and analysis of) the trade or environmental effects of ecolabelling cannot be conducted effectively without a more refined and comprehensive methodology for categorising ecolabels
• commercial policies in the private sector are becoming a far more important factor in the spread of some environmental requirements than, for example, any formal environmental or trade policies
• the lack of checks or balances in regard to the proliferation of ecolabels, including the lack of any way to harmonise existing and new ones; and the cost of conformity assessment (often the most significant barrier for developing country producers), which is related to the proliferation of ecolabels, result in undesirable trade effects
• the discussions on ecolabelling within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) seem unlikely to progress in the short to medium term
• although the data is inadequate for firm conclusions to be drawn, it appears likely that the producer (who bears most of the costs of shifting to more sustainable production techniques) is not the main benefactor of these investments
• while it is possible that some ecolabels will survive on the basis of their attractiveness to environmentally conscious consumers alone, evidence suggests that ecolabelling is most useful when it is developed in conjunction with complementary policy initiatives
• the first step towards making ecolabels more effective – and finding ways to reduce their negative impacts – must be to develop a consistent methodological framework to guide the categorisation of ecolabels into more distinct sets.

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