We started Ecolabel Index in 2007 with a simple goal to understand who’s deciding what’s green. A typical consumer might view any logo that makes an eco-claim as an ecolabel. We thought it would be useful to know who and what was behind these logos.

Things like governance, transparency, focus, and impact were all important to us. It has been a great experience learning about and working with the many passionate people who try to help consumers make more eco-friendly choices.

Our hope is that Ecolabel Index has lifted up those who are doing good work and driven us all to think more clearly about the power, potential and risk of ecolabels.

The .Eco Opportunity

Our work on Ecolabel Index also had a deeper purpose. We wanted to understand how the .eco top-level domain could support all this great work. It took a longer than we thought to fundraise, apply for, and win .eco in partnership with the global environmental community.

But now, we are pleased to say, .eco exists and it’s launching next year. You can already apply for generic .eco domains if you are a non-profit with an environmental mission through our grants program.

Who will use www.fish.eco? How can we imagine www.forestry.eco being used by our community? Because .eco is community run we have the chance to do something different and amazing with the Internet’s domain name system.

We hope you will join us and put your creative energy to work by applying for a domain grant before December 16th.

What’s Next for Ecolabel Index? 

While we focus on .eco as an opportunity and lasting legacy, we have also been talking about what’s next for Ecolabel Index.

We have experimented with a subscription service and with running ads on the site as ways of covering overhead. How, why and what data we collect has also changed over time.

On the technical side, we have developed a unique indicator system and our data is accessible via an API. A glossary has helped us define an ontology for the site. Since we launched, new platforms have also emerged that also communicate similar and different information.

We’ve put together a short survey that will help us understand what you’d like to see Ecolabel Index become. Please take a moment to share your thoughts.

Thanks for continuing this journey with us.