Greening the networked economy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 181

50

local national regional European International

40

30

20

10

0

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Figure 7.2. Number of environmental certificates and standards for the tourist
companies and accommodations used on the European market, 1990-2000
( source : http://www.eco-tip.org/Eco-labels/ecolabels.htm, accessed September
2006).

ecolabelling programs for various products (e.g., on organic food,
wood, recycled products, cars, green energy, etc.), and incidentally
international state-run ecolabelling programs are being developed (e.g.,
in the European Union). But in addition to these state-sanctioned
and often state-organised ecolabels and product information schemes,
a blossoming of private initiatives can be witnessed from local or
national producer/sector organised initiatives, to truly global inno-
vative industry-NGO ecolabelling initiatives such as those of the
well-known Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Marine Steward-
ship Council (MSC). 28 The environmental labelling and certification
schemes have become a worldwide phenomenon, in which global net-
works of certifiers and inspectors should make sure that information
flows represent what they claim to represent.

28

A rich literature from various disciplines has emerged on the various forms,
impacts, and arrangements involving public, private and mixed labelling
schemes (cf. Magat and Viscusi, 1992 ; Oosterveer, 2005 ). But the global
labelling schemes are not always as global as they are meant to be. The
innovative and much celebrated MSC and FSC labelling schemes are developed
to function globally, but in 2006 seventeen of the nineteen certified fisheries
under the MSC label and more than 80 percent of the certified area under the
FSC label were located in developed countries.