The ‘ecolabel maintained profiles’ test we launched about three weeks ago has been well received. The profiles of our test group were updated quickly with few errors.

Accordingly, we have now begun the process of emailing every ecolabel in the Index, with an invitation to update their profiles.

In return, we are offering ecolabeling organizations free access to Ecolabel Index PRO, which allows subscribers to view all the data on each label as well as find and compare labels side-by-side.

If you receive an email from us, please take a moment to ensure your profile is up to date. It is of utmost importance to us and our users that our data is as current as possible.

The Ecolabel Index team will continue to review ecolabel data and update our Index with new labels. If you have any questions or would like to suggest an addition to Ecolabel Index please email: support@ecolabelindex.com.

This week we completed development on a new service that will allow ecolabels to ‘claim’ and then update their profiles on Ecolabel Index. As part of this effort, we conducted a review of all metrics in the Index, including layout improvements and explanatory notes.

Before launching the service to all ecolabels in the Index, we are emailing twenty ecolabels to ask for their feedback on how the service works. If you receive an email from us, please do take a moment to test out this new service. We’d welcome your feedback on how it works, so we can fix any issues before launching it to the broader ecolabel community.

The Ecolabel Index team will continue to focus on conducting quality control and accuracy checks on Ecolabel Index data, as well as identifying new ecolabels.

If you have questions or want to participate in the trial, please email us directly.

We are pleased to introduce Andre Gailits, who will be joining the Big Room team as an Associate.

We hired Andre through the UBC Arts Co-op Program. He’s a UBC student that has completed a Major in Political Science, is finishing a second Major in Economics and is interested in pursuing a law degree. Andre’s academic focus is on macroeconomics and the role of contemporary governments.

He brings a wealth of experience to Big Room, having completed previous co-op terms with the federal government at DFAIT and INAC as well as with a local non-profit organization.

Andre also spent his childhood in three different countries, living in the USA, UK and Canada. He is very excited about joining the Big Room team, raising the profile of the Ecolabel Index, and working to augment the platform’s analytics and metrics.

Many non-profit organisations, including the David Suzuki Foundation, Natural Resources Defence Council, WWF and National Wildlife Federation, maintain lists of ecolabels that they recommend. Here’s David Suzuki Foundation’s example.

We are in the process of researching a “list of lists” of recommended ecolabels that we can integrate as an additional, hopefully useful, indicator for ecolabel users. If you are an established environmental organisation that maintains such a list, we’d love to hear from you. If you have advice on how to integrate this feature, let us know as well, and thanks!

Contact us on Twitter at @ecolabels

• Top 10 queried categories (in order): North America, Europe, Building Products, Tourism, Asia, Food, Textiles, Global, Electronics, Cosmetics. Change over previous month: Food dropped from 2nd to 6th, electronics and cosmetics joined top ten at 9th and 10th.
• Top 10 most visited ecolabels (in order): Blue Angel, Nordic Swan, EcoLogo, EU Ecolabel, AB, Singapore Green Label, India Ecomark, Carbon Reduction Label, BDIH Certified Natural Cosmetics, Cradle to Cradle. Change over previous month: EU Ecolabel jumped to 4th, BDIH and Cradle to Cradle joined top ten at 9th and 10th.
• General site usage: 8,656 visits (up 7%) | average user spent 3.5 minutes on the site | 31,000 pages viewed (down 4%) | average of 3.6 pages viewed per visit.

Key Developments

• ISEAL launched the first version of their Impacts Code of Good Practice “Assessing the Impacts of Social and Environmental Standards Systems” at a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil (view the announcement).
• An alliance of think-tanks and government agencies released a comprehensive overview of ecolabels & standards for the following commodities: forestry, coffee, cocoa, tea and bananas, at a conference in Berne, Switzerland (view the announcement).