News Archives

EcoProcura 2009 to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland

2008-08-15T05:31:34Z

ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and Reykjavik City Council have announced the details of EcoProcura 2009 conference.

Titled "Climate Neutral through Procurement" and it aims to exchange ideas, experiences, concepts and opinions on how sustainable procurement can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to climate change.

ICLEI's EcoProcura Conferences is the only European conference to provide a platform to promote exchange and dialogue amongst purchasers from all levels of governments, suppliers, policy-makers and multipliers on strategies and the latest practical solutions for implementing sustainable procurement.

For further information, visit ICLEI Europe's web site.

Product Carbon Labeling Takes Shape in South Korea

2008-08-01T06:08:17Z

The South Korean government has decided that certain products will get labels showing the amount of carbon gas emitted during their production.

The ministry said that it has selected 10 items to test the carbon gas labeling system to begin next month. The system will be officially introduced by January 2009.

]]> The system is designed to label the amount of carbon used in the stages of production, distribution, usage and disposal of the goods.

The products selected include a water purifier made by Woongjin, washing machines made by LG Electronics, CJ's instant pre-cooked microwavable rice, a heater from Kyungdong, and LCD glass made by Samsung Corning Precision Glass.

After completing the product-validation inspection next month, in order to grant final permission, the carbon-labeling information regarding the 10 products is expected to be available by the end of the year, according to the ministry.

Source : Government Press Releases

Food Firms Pledge to Cut Mileage

2008-07-25T08:39:38Z

Companies behind some of the biggest brands on U.K. supermarket shelves have pledged to slash the environmental impact of transporting their goods.

]]> The companies, which include Cadbury Schweppes, Weetabix Ltd and Premier Foods -- the company behind Hovis bread and Branston pickle -- committed to using a 10-point checklist to reduce the number and impact of food miles.

Maximizing vehicle loading, reducing the amount of journeys made without any freight, and using rail and shipping instead of road freight are among the recommendations on the checklist.

The FDF said it will help companies contribute to an industry target to reduce the environmental impact of domestic food transport by 20 percent by 2012, compared to 2002 levels.

For more information, please visit FDF.

The European Commission Proposes Legislation Promoting Sustainable Products, Technologies

2008-07-20T04:38:30Z

The European Commission (EC) has proposed a legislative package aimed at improving the environmental performance and energy efficiency of products in the European Union (EU) and stimulating their market uptake.

]]> The package sets out a series of voluntary and obligatory actions to help define eco-friendly products, inform consumers through improved labeling and support the purchase of green products through fiscal incentives.

The associated action plan lists the initiatives the EC will undertake in three key areas:

1. A new product policy

Energy and resource-efficient consumer products
In the absence of voluntary action, the Ecodesign Directive presently provides a framework for setting compulsory minimum requirements and voluntary benchmarks for energy-using products.

All energy-related products - those that do not consume energy during use but have an indirect impact on energy consumption - will also be covered in the future.

This will allow the EC to address products such as water-using devices and windows. For example, water-saving taps and showerheads reduce water consumption and therefore also the amount of energy used for hot water, all without altering the user's perceived well-being.

Mandatory labeling
Mandatory labeling will indicate relevant environmental parameters for a wider range of products, including energy-using and energy-related products.

Incentives and public procurement
The EC proposed that only products attaining a certain level of energy or environmental performance - identified by one of the labeling classes - are eligible for incentives and public procurement at national and EU levels. It will be up to EU member states whether and in what form to provide incentives.

Currently incentives are granted for very different levels of environmental performance across the EU, sometimes in regions very near to each other, thus limiting economies of scale for better performing products.

In addition, it is recommended that member states adopt common green procurement practices for goods and services not covered by the plan.

Voluntary eco-labeling
The EU's Eco-label scheme, which indicates the most environmentally friendly products on the EU market, will be extended to cover a wider range of products and services, such as food and drink products, and made less costly and bureaucratic.

These changes will make the scheme more attractive to manufacturers and encourage them to innovate and offer more such products.

Retailers' responsibility
A retail forum will be created, which will also include other stakeholders, such as producers and consumers' organizations.

This forum will prepare actions to improve large retailers' environmental performance, promote the purchase of greener products and better inform consumers.

2. Promoting leaner production
With a view to promoting leaner production, the proposals foresee:

・Developing targets and tools to monitor, benchmark and promote resource efficiency and eco-innovation. An environmental technology verification scheme will be established to support eco-innovation through increased confidence in new technologies.
・Revising EU's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) to increase its uptake, notably among small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by making participation less costly and involving organizations outside the EU.
・Developing an industrial policy for eco-industries by first analyzing the barriers to their expansion and to their full uptake by other sectors.
・Promoting environmental performance in SMEs through customized advice.

3. Sustainable consumption and production internationally
In order to promote sustainable products worldwide, the proposals envisage:

・Supporting agreements of industry sectors as part of international climate negotiations.
・Promoting and sharing good practices internationally.
・Promoting international trade in environmentally friendly goods and services.

More information

Action Plan for sustainable consumption, production and industry
EC web page on Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Competitiveness
EC web page on Sustainable Development
EC web site on EMAS

Statement for the G8 summit 2008

2008-07-18T04:27:55Z

IGPN issues a statement to call on world leaders, including those meeting at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit to immediately implement Green Purchasing around the world.

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Scientific understanding of climate change is clear

Global climate change is unequivocal, and the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify all nations taking immediate actions.

Requiring worldwide collaborative inputs

Developing nations lacking the infrastructure or resources to respond to the impacts of climate change will be particularly affected, and long-term global efforts for the creation of sustainable societies may be severely hindered. Therefore, in order to adapt to the consequences of climate change, worldwide collaborative inputs are required.

Cooling down through Green Purchasing

A sustainable future can only be realised in the global market through sustainable production and consumption, and we are committed to working with governments and business organisations around the world to help develop and implement Green Purchasing to address the challenge of climate change. We call on world leaders, including those meeting at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit to:

Show leadership in driving eco-innovation and share this knowledge with all other nations
Take immediate actions:
- To establish Green Purchasing Laws in all nations to promote eco-innovation and develop a substantial market share for eco-products
- To create an extensive mechanism to provide economic incentives for the purchase of outstanding eco-products and services
- To establish organisations to promote Green Purchasing in all nations which should develop environmental information platforms covering all eco-products and services
- To promote environmental consumer education

Dissemination of Green Purchasing is crucial in achieving the simultaneous pursuit of environmental conservation and economic development.

Dr. Ryoichi Yamamoto
Chair :
International Green Purchasing Network Professor :
Institute of Industrial Science
The University of Tokyo, Japan

Konrad Otto-Zimmermann
Vice Chair :
International Green Purchasing Networ Secretary General :
ICLEI World Secretariat

For further information, please contact:
International Green Purchasing Network (IGPN) Secretariat
Cosmos Aoyama, 5-53-67 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan.
Tel:+81-3-3406-5155 Fax:+81-3-3406-5190 E-mail: igpn@net.email.ne.jp

This statement is supported by:
-Scot Case, Vice-President & Partner, Terra Choice / Director of Procurement Strategy,
North American Green Purchasing Initiative
-Augustine Koh, Secretary General, Green Purchasing Network Malaysia (GPNM)
-Duk Seung Lee, Secretary General, Korean Green Purchasing Network (KGPN)
-Hideki Nakahara, Chairman, Green Purchasing Network Japan (GPN)
-Peter Nohrstedt, Lead Manager for the Swedish Instrument for Ecologically Sustainable Procurement (EKU),
Swedish Environmental Management Council (MSR)

G8 leaders agree to encourage Green Purchasing

2008-07-09T02:25:57Z

The G8 leaders gathered at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit agreed to encourage the practice of Green Purchasing by enhancing efforts in the WTO negotiations to eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services with a view to disseminating clean technology and skills.

For further information, read the article 34 of the Document of Environment and Climate Change.

Nordic Ecolabel provides pre-requisites for Swan-labeled fuels

2008-07-02T02:40:02Z

The Nordic Ecolabel, a standard promoted by the Nordic Council for environmentally sustainable products, has provided the pre-requisites for companies to apply for the Swan label for fuels including ethanol, biodiesel, biogas and mixtures of these fuels.
The Nordic Ecolabel has requirements for the entire product lifecycle, from the raw materials to the finished product, in this case the fuel that is available at the petrol stations.

The most essential requirements for Nordic Ecolabelled fuels are reduced emissions that negatively affect global warming and climate change with an absolute threshold value to the amount of CO2 that may be released to the atmosphere during the entire life-cycle of the fuel.

Other pre-requisites include restrictions on the total energy used at the production stage, traceability of crops and certified sustainable farming, and defined limitations on health effects of these fuels.

Within a year, the requirements for Nordic Ecolabelled fuel will be revised to allow for the incorporation of new results from technical research, certifications and European Union directives.

For more information, please visit Nordic Ecolabel.

12.7 TWh through the Swedish electricity certificate system in 2007

2008-04-20T07:30:00Z

In 2007, 12.7 TWh of renewable electricity was produced under the electricity certificate system in Sweden. This is equivalent to the annual consumption of around half a million electrically heated detached houses. Biofuels are the dominant source of energy for electricity production in the system. But the sharpest increase is for wind power, up 45 per cent on 2006.
For more information, please visit Sweden Energy Agency.

Multilingual version of the Green Purchasing & Green Public Procurement Starter Kit developed

2008-04-07T07:06:24Z

IGPN and GPN India have completed the development of the Green Purchasing & Green Public Procurement Starter Kit in Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and English.

The CD version will be available from GPN India, China GPN, Thai GPN, Vietnam Productivity Centre (VPC) and IGPN. Web version will soon be uploaded to the web sites of the respective organisations.

Green Purchasing Network to be set up in Vietnam

2008-03-04T06:50:28Z

At the workshop on Green Purchasing and Greening Supply Chain, held on 3 March 2008 during the EPIF2008 at the National Convention Center in Hanoi, Vietnam, Ms Nguyen Thi Bich Hang, General Director of Vietnam Eco Paradise, announced the plan to set up the Green Purchasing Network in Vietnam.

For further information, please contact the IGPN Secretariat.

More and more public bodies in Sweden have guidelines on green procurement

2008-01-30T04:35:40Z

Four out of every five public bodies in Sweden have guidelines on consideration of the environment in the procurement of goods and services. This is revealed by a survey commissioned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency among 21 county councils, 290 municipalities and 216 government agencies.

For further information, please visit Swedish EPA web site.

Swedish green car market is growing strongly

2008-01-18T07:58:38Z

A total of 55,000 new green cars were registered in Sweden in 2007, an increase of 49 per cent on the figure for 2006. This means that green cars accounted for 18 per cent of the total car market in Sweden. At the turn of the year there were 50 different green car models on the Swedish market.

]]> “Sweden is showing the strongest growth in green car sales in the world”, Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, said in a debate in Parliament.

The most common type of green cars sold in 2007 was ethanol driven (11.5 per cent of all sold cars). Green cars also include cars powered by gas (0.6 per cent), hybrid cars (1.1 per cent) and petrol or diesel cars that emit less than 120 grams CO2 per kilometre (6.6 per cent). A total of 307,000 new cars were sold in Sweden in 2007.

The Swedish Government has introduced a rebate of SEK 10,000 for private individuals who buy a new green car. The rebate scheme came into effect on 1 April 2007 and will continue until 31 December 2009. The Government has allocated SEK 50 million to the rebate scheme for 2007, SEK 100 million for 2008 and SEK 100 million for 2009.

For more information, please visit Swedish EPA.

EU commission to help small and medium-sized companies become greener

2007-10-08T08:34:57Z

Helping small and medium-seized companies use energy and resources efficiently is the aim of a recently published Commission Communication. It does this by providing a legal framework and measures that reinforce existing policies and initiatives in line with the particular characteristics of smaller companies. To this end the Communication proposes to create a programme to help small and medium-sized companies implement European environmental legislation.

]]> The programme will channel financial resources towards support networks, simplify access to environmental management systems, and promote greater awareness of environmental issues among these companies.

Individual small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ less than 250 people, but the European Union's 23 million SMEs as a whole represent about 99% of all EU enterprises and 57% of the Union's total economic added value. Being responsible for such a large percentage of the EU economy's turnover the impact of SMEs on the environment is significant.

The Environmental Compliance Assistance Programme proposed by the Commission is a set of measures that aim to help SMEs minimise the environmental impact of their activities and to facilitate compliance with existing legislation. The Programme intends to reduce the burden of compliance by designing instruments and policies to integrate environmental concerns into the core of SME activities.

The measures presented in the Communication also cover the dissemination of information specifically targeted for SMEs, promoting support networks, and training activities that build local environmental expertise.

Eco-products International Fair 2008 (EPIF2008) to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam

2007-09-03T07:45:50Z

The Eco-products International Fair (EPIF) was initiated by the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) in 2004 and has been held in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore with the number of participating companies increasing every year.

With the remarkable economic growth, the attractive investment opportunities and the concerns expressed by the government and its people for the environmental protection in recent years, Vietnam will play a host country for the fourth Eco-products International Fair in 2008, which is scheduled to take place in Hanoi between the 1st and 4th March 2008.

Please visit the EPIF 2008 web site for further details.

New toolkit to promote green business travel

2007-08-28T02:06:02Z

A university research group has created a toolkit to encourage greener business travel.
Omega, a government funded research group comprised of nine universities, government departments and members of the Aviation Environment Federation, released details of the toolkit.

]]> The free toolkit called Icarus, which focuses on carbon emissions, was developed by academics and the Institute of Travel Management. It is directed toward business travel buyers and suppliers, responding to the trend of growing corporate social responsibility.

It covers areas such as environmental policy guidelines and recommended carbon dioxide measurement tools. For instance, it suggests planning itineraries to lower the distances traveled and increasing low impact travel, such as rail, over air travel.

Migrating from petroleum-powered cars to diesel can reduce emissions by 10 percent, it said, while choosing carriers with strong environmental performance rewards such efforts.

It includes a system of accreditation to honor those who use the toolkit to reduce carbon emissions. Suppliers also are recognized for leadership and innovation if they are able to make their travel products greener.