Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The costs of ecolabelling for an industry can be substantial and may apply at
several different levels in the governance and labelling system, including the cost
of:
assembly and coordination of data and information specifically required for
compliance assessment;
initial certification and ongoing verification of compliance with the ecolabelling
standard;
protection against abuse of the labels to protect competing national or industry
trade interests;
organising the industry into a cohesive group to be able to engage with the
ecolabelling programme and to effectively maintain the compliance conditions;
the costs of establishing a secure chain of custody for the product from the
producer to the consumer; and
the costs of advertising and awareness campaigns to specifically capitalise on
the consumer appeal of the ecolabel.
The MSC reassessment of the Alaska salmon fishery, the New Zealand hoki
fishery and Australia's Western Rock Lobster Fishery has taken at least 2 years in
each case, and in the case of the Alaska salmon, has cost US$250 000 (Hedlund
2007). Costs of this order of magnitude are clearly a major impost on any fishery
and are inevitably likely to be passed on to the consumer. This level of transaction
cost is a major impediment for smaller fisheries, and for producers with low margins
that may already be under other cost pressures, costs of this order could effectively
prevent their access to major programmes like the MSC.
1.4
Types of ecolabels
Generally speaking, ecolabels are one part of a family of environmental labelling
systems, each of which may result in the certification of a product. The International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) has defined three main types of environ-
mental labelling, and ecolabels generally fall into the category of the ISO Type I
labels (Table 1.1).
The ISO classification system (Table 1.1) does not provide, or impose, specific
performance standards, but rather provides a uniform framework within which a
systematic system of labelling can be developed and implemented within an indus-
try sector. However, seafood ecolabelling programmes are based on performance
standards, and products can be classified based on compliance with the standard,
as well as on the processes used for setting the performance standard and for de-
termining compliance of products with that standard. This provides for a widely
used classification of seafood ecolabelling programmes into three main types (af-
ter Deere 1999) based on the characteristics of the sustainability standard and the
compliance assessment process:
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