Author: Fraser

Law, Policy, and Standards

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

Continue reading “ecolabelling.org – Who’s deciding what’s green?”

Uncategorized

Big herbivores keep ants and trees together

Here’s your weekly Science Matters column by David Suzuki with Faisal Moola.

If you thought your relationships were complicated, try being an acacia
tree; or an ant, or a large herbivore. Nature, it turns out, is full of
complicated relationships. And we mess with them at our peril.

Recently, I wrote about one such complex relationship – between
large primates and large-seeded tropical fruit trees. It turns out that
many such trees rely on large primates to distribute their seeds
through the forest. When the primates are killed off through hunting or
habitat loss, the trees suffer too, making the primates’ comeback even
more difficult.

Continue reading “Big herbivores keep ants and trees together”

Around the Web

A Simple, Sustainable Choice: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car Launch Customer Carbon Offset Program

For more information, contact:
Jason Graham
Argyle Communications
416-968-7311 ext 229

For Immediate Release

A Simple, Sustainable Choice:
Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and
Alamo Rent A Car Launch Customer Carbon Offset Program
 
Industry-leading initiative could reach 20-25 million renters;
Customers’ optional offset purchases will be matched up to $1 million  

January 15, 2008 (St. Louis, MO) – Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car
Rental and Alamo Rent A Car today launched their industry’s largest
customer carbon offset program.  Designed to give customers a simple
but meaningful way to address the environmental impact of renting a
car, the program is the first consumer initiative to be launched under
all three brands.

Continue reading “A Simple, Sustainable Choice: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car Launch Customer Carbon Offset Program”