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Ecolabeling fails to provide buyers with ample goods

The promotion of ecolabeling in Taiwan in the past decade has failed to provide consumers with enough goods in the market, according to the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) yesterday.

Taiwan launched its Green Mark Program in 1992 to promote recycling, pollution reduction and resource conservation. The objectives of ecolabeling were to both guide consumers and encourage manufacturers to design and manufacture environmentally friendly products.

Recent statistics from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) suggest that more than 1,800 products in Taiwan have received the Green Mark label.

However, at a press conference yesterday, consumer activists from the foundation said that products bearing the Green Mark label were rarely seen on the market.

"Apart from washing machines, air conditioner, refrigerators and a few others, we rarely see green-labeled products on the market," said Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏), the foundation's secretary-general.

Even when products receive the ecolabels Cheng said, consumers often have difficulty in finding the sticker because they are usually placed on the products arbitrarily and randomly.

The foundation also released a recent survey on the public's awareness of ecolabeling, showing that the public was unfamiliar with the system.

The survey was compiled from 1,213 questionnaires, which were filled out by consumers at 18 department stores and large supermarkets in Taipei.

According to the survey, only 48.6 percent of interviewees purchased products with the Green Mark labels. About 40 percent of interviewees said they had no idea at all about ecolabeling.

However, 82.7 percent of interviewees said they would pay extra to purchase products receiving green labels. In fact, about 61 percent of those surveyed thought that paying an additional 10 percent to protect the environment would be acceptable.

EPA officials said that "green" purchasing was heavily promoted by the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development -- held last year in Johannesburg, South Africa -- by encouraging governments to develop public-purchasing policies and action plans that promote environmentally friendly products and services.

"According to our recent survey, about 90 percent of the public has heard of ecolabeling," said Ke Chih-hung (柯志弘), deputy director-general of the EPA's Bureau of Performance Evaluation and Dispute Settlement.

Ko said the purchase of environmentally friendly products had been promoted among Cabinet-agencies and local governments.

The Cabinet marked out 27 products commonly used in government offices, including computers, stationery and air-conditioners,and set agencies the goal of spending at least 50 percent of the budgets allocated for these resources on environmentally friendly goods.

According to EPA statistics released in April, the government last year spent NT$2.65 billion on environmentally friendly products listed by the Cabinet, accounting for 65.6 percent of the total.
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