Sustainability has become the new concept in town and more people are swearing by it these days. As you go on a shopping spree, it sometimes becomes difficult to understand what you should buy. This is especially true for all sustainable shoppers who care about the environment. While many products claim to be sustainable, that might be far from the truth. How would you understand that a given product would cause no harm to the environment? That it is sustainable and better for the environment than the other products? One of the best ways to confirm this is by looking for eco-labels. This is a recognizable and reputed symbol which guarantees some level of environmental friendliness.
Defining Green Labels
Green labels or sustainable labels are defined as trustworthy symbols which depict that the given product is good for the environment. While some eco-labels are voluntary, others are mandatory. For example, for an electric product, to show how energy-efficient they are, the appliances are given eco-labels.
There are different types of eco-labelling systems around the world, and each of them comes with a wide range of criteria. For example, if you see a recycle symbol on your cloth, it generally means that the product is made up of recycled material. It would not indicate that the factory where the product is manufactured emits no harmful pollutants or it does not use child labour, and so on.
Benefits Of Eco-Labelling
There are three major benefits of having sustainable labels:
The customers would get an easy understanding of what type of products they are buying. It can work as a trustworthy guide which would help people understand that they have contributed to the betterment of the environment.
Such labelling also helps the manufacturers in understanding the potential point of difference and they also gain a competitive advantage. For example, if two products are there of the same cost, then many people are there who would prefer buying sustainable products over the non-sustainable ones. For manufacturers, making eco-friendly products also indicates better commercial growth.
The labels also encourage that there is a general rise in environmental performance. This is also true for those products that come without a label.
However, the biggest problem in this sector is that, once the manufacturers notice how labelling is helping to grow their business, some of them might stop being ethical. This would mean attaching labels with false claims, tricking customers into thinking that the given product is better than they are. The only way to avoid such situations is by being well informed. The shoppers can some online research to get a better understanding of where the products are coming from and how sustainable they are.
