Traditionally, the purpose of ecolabels and green marketing in general is to allow consumers to know which products were produced in an environmentally friendly fashion. A small stamp or label will tell you that what you’re buying is made with recycled material or the workers that created it were treated fairly. But the future of ecolabels, according to Jacquelyn Ottman, will be in communicating how much money consumers save by buying sustainable products. Her article touches on the EPA’s new fuel-economy label. This label tells the buyer the estimated fuel costs per year and how much money you save or lose in fuel costs compared to the average car.

Communicating savings is a strategy that is rare in the realm of ecolabels, as most environmentally friendly products cost extra. The automobile sector is a logical start for cost savings in green marketing as it is one of the primary places families allocate money, aside from their home. And it is also an area with added costs (fuel, maintenance) after your purchase, where future savings are applicable.

Aside from appliance ecolabels like Energy Star and the sustainable building developments sector, there are few products that can offer future savings once the consumer pays a premium for sustainable production. Nevertheless, communicating savings could be the key to widespread ecolabel use in a few key sectors. Many consumers are oblivious to the environmental footprint of products they buy. But if a relatively large and explicit label (like EPA’s fuel-economy label) told consumers they would be saving money down the road, those products would likely increase in popularity.

Providing monetary incentives to go green is one of the strongest ways to encourage businesses to produce their goods sustainably.  Relying on environmental sympathies alone is not going to produce widespread change in consumption patterns, but if sustainability can be equated with savings and clearly communicated, a bright future for the success of sustainable businesses is in store.

Sustainable design has long been a feature of the construction industry. Architects design windows to reduce electricity costs and include point of use water treatments to improve energy efficiency. Homeowners have always wanted the latest technologies to cut costs, but in recent years, there has been a push for expansive green technologies to be applied to massive development projects. This has drawn the support of not only environmental organizations, but also governments and the public.

President Obama’s recent call for a more sustainable federal government has led the Government Services Organization (GSA) to create a green innovation category in their Real Property Award. Last year’s winner was NASA’s Sustainability Base, a monstrous office building featuring a sunlight-trapping and solar powered electrical system that will produce twice as much energy as the building uses, as well as a 6,000-gallon underground water tank that collects rainwater for additional usage. Other large sustainable development projects include No. 1 Central Park in Sydney and The Media Centre in England.

However, as honorable the intentions are, these new buildings have come under scrutiny and developed a whole new set of issues in regards to sustainability. Advertising a building as ‘green’ and gaining support for the project has proven to be much easier than maintaining an affordable and environmentally friendly supply chain. No. 1 Central Park project in Sydney has recently been discovered to be using illegal rainforest timber, potentially undermining the development’s green claims, but also demonstrating the challenges of managing large, complex supply chains and distant certification processes. Sustainable building presents all the same risks and challenges of traditional construction with the added caveat that all materials and processes must be held to the highest environmental standard.

A recent article in Business Insurance highlights the legal difficulties of turning abstract ideals like ‘eco-friendly buildings’ into contractual language. A main concern is how to create insurance policies for these buildings and technologies. Many companies have only insured traditional projects and creating accounting schemes for a new set of materials and processes is proving to be very difficult. It has led to unmet expectations as far as the final product and price. ‘Green’ systems will often not create the anticipated energy savings leading to higher utility costs as well as a disconnect between the anticipated and real value of the systems.

As green technology envelopes more of the economy, unique challenges are emerging in almost every facet of each project. The inevitable difficulties must be seen as part of the road to vast improvements in the construction and building sectors of the economy. In time, the kinks will be worked out and sustainable design will no longer be a cutting edge technology but the norm in building.

The US Green Buidling Council announced today its second open comment period (PDF) for the proposed 2012 update to its LEED green building rating system.

Comments will be collected from projects testing pilot credits, from USGBC-moderated forums and various stakeholder webinars.  Visit the LEED Rating System Development site to access the proposed drafts and supporting material.

LEED User (a service of Building Green) provides a useful breakdown of the changes and a discussion forum to track.

Last round they got 6000 comments – an indicator of how influential LEED has become. Comment away!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that they will now be labeling the most environmentally friendly ENERGY STAR products with a Most Efficient label. This stricter standard will only apply to roughly five percent of the approximately 40,000 ENERGY STAR certified products, making it the most stringent of energy standards available.

Amid the millions of products that have been certified by hundreds of various ecolabels, it is inevitable that confusion and skepticism will arise. Many corporations have been accused of greenwashing, or falsely advertising that their products are environmentally friendly when they’re not. As most businesses are seeking to appear to be environmentally friendly, in order to keep up with competitors, ecolabels and businesses are searching for new ways to distinguish themselves.

Many ecolabels continually update their standards while some, like ENERGY STAR and CRI Green Label, have created new tiers for their label. Clarification could also come in the creation of lists of the most robust or strict ecolabels, so consumers can rank products based on what ecolabel they have. The David Suzuki Foundation and NRDC have both created ecolabel rankings to assist consumers.

As the number of ecolabels and businesses applying for them exponentially increases, the ecolabels themselves will have to reevaluate their standards and how they communicate with consumers in order to retain public trust. It will be interesting to see how ecolabel organizations modernize as demand for them increases.

An interesting new legislation passed in Romania states that any unauthorized company using the EU Ecolabel will be subject to a 5,000 – 10,000 lei fine. This is the equivalent of $1,600-$3,200 CDN for each offense.

Romania is one of the first governments to actively enforce the use of verifiable ecolabels. The United States Department of Agriculture also levies fines of up to $11,000 USD for companies that mislabel products as ‘organic’. These initiatives are excellent first steps in enforcing a growing sector that is difficult to police, and may encourage more governments to do the same.

Currently the greatest threat to deceitful green-businesses and ecolabels is the loss of reputation that occurs when the public discovers they are not, in fact, eco-friendly at all. However, recent lawsuits against SC Johnson and a number of personal care product manufacturers reveal that consumers and environmental groups are using the courts in an effort to make businesses pay for their dishonesty with more than a loss of public standing.

As more companies are fined by governments or sued by consumers for misleading eco-marketing, a more comprehensive legal framework will be established through case law, and potentially through policy, to enforce such claims.

It will be interesting to see if more countries follow in the path of Romania via direct regulation, or rely on the outcomes of lawsuits to establish the future of ecolabelling law.