In July 2000, the Revised Regulation and the Ecolabel workplan for the Community Ecolabel Award scheme was adopted by the European Parliament and the European Council. A new governing body, the European Union Ecolabelling Board (EUEB) was established and revised procedures for the management of the scheme and the establishment of product group criteria were adopted. Part of the revised approach had been the establishment of three management groups, created in the context of the Community ecolabel working plan (EUEB, 2001), to assist the Commission and the Member States in the elaboration of different aspects of the eco-label scheme. The Policy Management Group was specifically set up to develop and adapt the long-term policy and strategy of the scheme, and to coordinate with and provide input to relevant policy developments such as labelling initiatives.

For more information on the EU Eco-label decision making process, product criteria and the certified products available see here
and the January 2004 discussion paper for the consideration of the Policy Management Group of the European Union Eco-labelling Board Summarising the work of the Policy Management Group.

Aims:

• Strong involvement of environmental NGOs in the EU Ecolabel political and technical process, with the aim of providing input to the discussion on new products towards ecologically ambitious criteria.

• Creation of a dedicated NGO ecolabel organization to enable professional coverage of all EU ecolabelling activities.

Activities :

• Coordination of NGO representatives in technical working groups on product criteria with focus on key environmental themes.

• Diffusion of ongoing ecolabel work to the EEB Ecolabel network and capacity building of the network.

• Political pressure on EUEB to improve the level of product criteria and development of horizontal criteria and the resources available for NGO involvement. Continuation of the practical involvement of the EEB in the Ecolabel scheme.

• To write an evaluation of the overall performance of the EU Ecolabel over the last 10 years. To this end, a researcher was hired for four months full-time as the EU Ecolabel Campaign Assistant.