Environmental Labels will be Required for Consumer Products in France
Published by Julia Guth on July 22, 2010
Suppliers and retailers around the world are asking many questions about the French National Assembly's new mandatory life-cycle based environmental labeling scheme and how it will affect the design, production and marketing of consumer package goods.
The new Grenelle 2 bill (adopted May 11, 2010) requires all consumer products and services sold in France - whether manufactured in the country or imported - to display information about their environmental impacts. The legislators' aim in developing the bill is to help consumers understand the most significant environmental impacts of the products and services they buy. For consumer packaged goods (CPG) suppliers, the bill requires them to use labels that consider the product's environmental life cycle - everything from the carbon content of products and their packaging, to the consumption of natural resources, to the management of materials at end-of-life.
The French Assembly is still determining how to implement Grenelle 2. For example, the Assembly needs to define specific conditions for measuring environmental impacts. Many uncertainties exist: will the requirements apply to producers, retailers, or both? What will be the standardized methodological framework? How will the environmental information be communicated to consumers? How detailed will the assessments need to be? A trial phase of at least one year, beginning in July 2011, will help France fine-tune its scheme. This trial period also gives other countries opportunities to anticipate the implications for international business and the export sector.
Grenelle 2's impacts are potentially far reaching, affecting CPG companies across all market sectors as well as those upstream suppliers in the value chain who will need to supply environmental data. Companies will need to gather necessary product footprint information and evaluate how best to illustrate the information on packaging and marketing materials. The legislation also represents another example of the growing demand for CPG suppliers to understand product footprints using life cycle assessment (LCA) tools.
What challenges do you think this bill will pose for CPG companies and retailers?
Found in: eco-labels
