13 April 2020
Evaluation of Environmental Labels for Consumer Products
RDC conducted an evaluation of environmental labels on everyday household products for ADEME.
The Diversity of Environmental Labels
There are many different labels and logos (Ecolabel, Nature & Progrès, Nordic Swan…).
ADEME was looking to construct an objective evaluation of the relevance of those labels and logos in order to provide educational information to the general public
RDC Environment has conducted this assessment between 2018 and 2020.
An Environmental Assessment
Firstly, RDC Environment has been selecting the environmental labels that were to be reviewed, after validating that they do help consumers identify more sustainable products.
Secondly, in order to evaluate the relevance of these labels, RDC Environment has conducted a two-step analysis:
- Analysis of the structural reliability of the environmental labelThe label’s structure itself has been analysed to verify whether its organization is rigorous and well-defined;
- Analysis of the environmental reliability of the labelRDC Environment has identified the most significant environmental impacts and the most critical life cycle phases related to each product category. Afterwards, RDC assessed how effectively labels reduce the most significant environmental impacts at each stage of the life cycle. Found out more about our LCA services here.
An Educational Communication for the General Public
This analysis allows ADEME to recommend 100 labels related to 12 categories of everyday products: food, maintenance and cleaning, hygiene and beauty, clothing and footwear, furniture, bedding, home textiles, DIY and decoration, stationery and supplies, multimedia, games and toys and accommodation.
A website accessible to the general public gathers the information of RDC Environment and the recommendations of the ADEME, along with sheets specific to product families.
