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Sustainable Marketplace: Greener Products and Services
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Introduction to Ecolabels and Standards for Greener Products

On this page:

  • What is an ecolabel?
  • What is an environmental performance standard?
  • What is a voluntary consensus standard?
  • EPA's work to develop standards and ecolabels
  • Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Green Guides support better environmental marketing claims
  • Framework for the assessment of environmental performance standards and ecolabels

What is an ecolabel?

Ecolabels are marks placed on product packaging or in e-catalogs that can help consumers and institutional purchasers quickly and easily identify those products that meet specific environmental performance criteria and are therefore deemed “environmentally preferable”. Ecolabels can be owned or managed by government agencies, nonprofit environmental advocacy organizations, or private sector entities.

Ecolabels can be single-attribute, meaning they focus on a single lifecycle stage (i.e. the use phase) of a product/service or a single environmental issue (i.e. VOC emissions). They can also be multi-attribute, meaning they focus on the entire lifecycle (manufacture, use, maintenance, disposal) of a product/service and address many different environmental issues (i.e. energy use, chemical use, recycling, and more).

  • EPA owned ecolabel programs
  • Recommendations of private sector ecolabels by product category

What is an Environmental Performance Standard?

These are standards, often established by multi-stakeholder groups, that set specified levels of performance in order to claim that a product or service is “environmentally preferable”.

What is a Voluntary Consensus Standard?

OMB Circular A-119 defines voluntary consensus standards (VCS) as technical documents (e.g., test methods, specifications, and terminology) that are developed or adopted by VCS bodies using procedures that have safeguards to ensure that the standards development process is open to all interested parties, and that the input and viewpoints of a broad range of interested parties are taken into account and treated fairly.

EPA's work to develop standards and ecolabels

As part of its mission, EPA works with a variety of private sector standards developers to create voluntary consensus standards for environmentally preferable goods and services. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-119 direct the federal government to participate in the development and use of private sector standards, where those standards meet government needs.

  • Read the NTTAA.
  • Read the OMB Circular A-119.

EPA also develops standards, criteria documents and ecolabeling programs for products as part of its mission to protect human health and the environment. Examples of EPA ecolabeling programs include ENERGY STAR™, WaterSense® , Safer Choice, and SmartWay. They are noteworthy examples of Federal leadership in advancing energy efficiency, water efficiency and green chemistry, respectively, and reflect EPA's commitment to objective, fact-based decision-making, grounded in scientific reasoning and principles, and using the best available data.

FTC's Green Guides support better environmental marketing claims

The number of standards for green products has increased in recent years due to growth in market demand for "green" products. Recent examples include standards for electronics and building materials (such as furniture, carpet and paint). More are likely to arise as retailers, governments and other buyers seek to expand their green purchasing.

However, along with this changing marketplace has come increasing concern regarding "greenwashing" and uncertainty about which environmental claims related to standards and labels can be trusted. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has created its Green Guides to help ensure that marketing claims regarding the environmental attributes of products are truthful and substantiated. However, these guides largely address when and how very specific and narrow environmental attributes can be claimed, not how to construct a broad-based environmental standard or ecolabeling program.

Read the FTC Green Guides.

Framework for the Assessment of Environmental Performance Standards and Ecolabels

Related Info

Section III of EPA's Framework addresses conformity assessment procedures. Conformity assessment is used to ensure that products and services consistently meet criteria in product sustainability standards. Learn more:

  • National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) ABCs of Conformity Assessment

The Framework, developed through a multi-stakeholder consensus based process, provides a transparent, fair, and consistent approach to assessing private sector standards and ecolabels for recommendations to federal purchasers. The Framework encourages continuous improvement of both standards and ecolabels and the products and services that those standards and ecolabels address, while providing flexibility to accommodate the variety of approaches to and types of standards and ecolabels that exist in the marketplace today.

Find more information:

  • Framework background and development process
  • Recommendations of specifications, standards and ecolabels for federal purchasing
  • Sustainable Marketplace Home
  • Consumers
    • Identify Greener Products and Services
    • Why Buy Greener Products?
  • Federal Purchasers
    • About the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program
    • Recommendations of Standards and Ecolabels
    • Framework for Assessing Standards and Ecolabels
    • Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)
  • Institutional Purchasers
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    • Selling to the Federal Government
  • Introduction to Ecolabels and Standards
  • Frequent Questions
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Last updated on March 24, 2022