By Sustainability team
16th July 2010.
12:53

ECO labeling

I read an interesting article at Good about the difficulty of labeling also trying to educate on how to interpret labels. If it is difficult to understand a label on a “simple” product like skin lotion then how difficult would it not be to have it on a mobile phone?

We get the question why can you not have a label on the mobile phone for carbon footprint, or substances or why not Fairtrade. The complexity of electronic products and their supply chain makes it virtually impossible to have 100% control of the situation and status of all suppliers and their sub suppliers. To compare products based on a label without the possibility to provide full guarantees neither from the manufacturer nor from the one issuing the label creates great risks. The difficulty to get comparable data has been described on this blog before.

If we can get credible comparable data then we have the second question. What is most important energy or unwanted substances or is it the working conditions in the factory?

There are attempts to create labels for mobile phones and I hope the challenges will be possible to overcome. It is not easy to be a consumer but if we create more labels will it become easier or more difficult…..