ecolabelling.org – Who’s deciding what’s green?

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Canadian start up Big Room Inc. today launched the
world’s biggest independent directory of ecolabels. Available through an easy to use online
database at ecolabelling.org, Big Room provides information for consumers, producers and
procurers, on 285 global ecolabels for everything from organic food (Soil Association) to
wood products (FSC) to carbon offsets (EcoLogo).

Ecolabels have been available to consumers since the 1970s but in recent years, interest in
labels on consumer products has increased substantially. Company founders Jacob
Malthouse, Trevor Bowden and Anastasia O’Rourke, came up with the idea while
conducting research into how consumers make decisions about green products and
services.

“We realized that it’s hard to find out who’s deciding what’s ‘green’, so we set out to make it
easier for everyone to look behind the label. Knowing who’s behind it and what it means can
help people to separate the green from the greenwash,” says Malthouse.

The trio, who met while working for international environmental organisations in Europe, has
identified nearly 500,000 products with a green label or certification. They have found
ecolabels for products and services in almost every sector. The majority of existing
ecolabels are in food and other consumer retail goods, and they tend to be concentrated in
Western Europe and North America.

“Interestingly enough, Big Room didn’t find any ecolabels for the emerging clean-tech sector
including technologies around alternative energy,” says O’Rourke. “Right now, clean-tech
has a green halo, but as it grows, we expect more questions to be raised around its green
credentials and hence more certification schemes. We will be tracking new schemes on
ecolabelling.org as they come online.”

Ecolabelling.org also expects to add more schemes and new analytic tools over the coming
months.

-more-

Ecolabelling.org is first in a series of platforms built by Vancouver-based Big Room, a
company committed to helping consumers, producers and procurers to make green choices.

For more information, contact:

Olga Orda
olga@equostrategies.com
+1.778.785.4242

From their web site:

ecolabelling.org is the global, independent database of ecolabels.

We (Trevor, Jacob, Anastasia, and Shaun) started this site because the sheer number of labels can be enough to make your shopping trolley spin. Marine Stewardship Council certified fish. ENERGY STAR electronics. LEED certified buildings. Standards. Criteria. Verification. Assurance.

We found ourselves asking who’s deciding what’s green, and what do these labels actually mean?

Ecolabelling.org has 3 goals:

1. Useful

We’ve designed this site for people who want fast, accurate, relevant information on ecolabels.

This is a work in progress. We’ll continue to add fields and metrics over time, as we collect more data.

We’re interested in your opinion, particularly if you’re in
procurement, industry, finance, retail and definitely if you’re a
consumer with a penchant for label spotting. Is there some format you’d
like to see the data in? If we can make it more useful, contact us!

2. Neutral & Inclusive

There are no judgment calls in this database about what is — or is
not — an ecolabelling scheme. We aim to include every single ecolabel
out there, in any language.

So far we have over 200, but it seems that the more we look, the
more we find! This database will grow — hopefully with your help. So,
if we’ve missed your favourite ecolabel, let us know.

3. Open

Dig in. We’re open to collaborating and sharing our data in any way we can. Let’s work together to make ecolabelling.org even more useful than it is.

ecolabelling.org is the first of many interesting things released into the wild by Big Room Inc., a company that builds big environmental solutions with big tools, like the internet.

Visit their web site: http://ecolabelling.org