The Nordic Swan - From past experiences to future possibilities

The Nordic Swan - From past experiences to future possibilities
Author:
Publisher: Nordic Council of Ministers
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2008
Genre: Eco-labeling
ISBN: 9289316802

This report presents the third evaluation of the Nordic Swan ecolabelling scheme. The evaluation is conducted from the perspective of the public administration, and it examines the role of the Nordic Swan in a policy context. Recommendations are presented for authorities in the Nordic countries and for the bodies operating the schemes on a Nordic and national level. The evaluation focuses on current opportunities and challenges in the operating environment of the scheme. It examines the relations between the Nordic Swan and the EU Eco-label in the Nordic countries, including their governance procedures, popularity and reception in the market. Other current topics addressed include the progress achieved by the Nordic marketing strategy for the Swan and some current governance issues in the scheme, including the grounds for public funding for the Nordic Swan. The report also analyses the relations between the Swan and other environmental information systems. In particular, the report investigates the opportunities and challenges ensuing from the current attention to climate issues for the Nordic Swan.

A Stakeholder Approach to Managing Food

A Stakeholder Approach to Managing Food
Author: Adam Lindgreen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317186540

This research anthology explores the concept of food production and supply, from farm gate to plate, bringing together contemporary thinking and research on local, national, and global issues from a stakeholder perspective. A Stakeholder Approach to Managing Food includes a number of sections to represent these challenges, opportunities, conflicts, and cohesions affecting relevant stakeholder groups within food production and supply and their reaction to, engagement with, and co-creation of the food environment. For some, local, national, and global interests may seem at odds. We are in an era of growing and pervasive multi-national corporations, and these corporations have significant influence at all levels. Rapidly growing economies such as China are a focus for the global brand, but is this a scenario of adaptation or homogenization of food? Alongside this trend toward national and global development in food, this volume presents the counter-reaction that is taking place (especially in developed countries) toward local speciality and culturally bound foods, with emphasis on the importance of the inter-connection of local communities and agri-food culture and economy. With an in-depth analysis of agricultural businesses, this book shows that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in rural communities with often renewed and engaged connection with consumers and imaginative use of new media. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy-makers concerned with agriculture, food production and economics, cultural studies.

Product Environmental Information and Product Policies: How Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) changes the situation?

Product Environmental Information and Product Policies: How Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) changes the situation?
Author: Nissinen, Ari
Publisher: Nordic Council of Ministers
Total Pages: 75
Release: 2019-11-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9289363509

Reliable information is needed to drive the market towards ecologically sound products. Product Environmental Footprint has many properties that are new to the Life Cycle Assessment tradition, increasing the consistency, accuracy and comparability of the results. It is important to start the organization of the PEF scheme, and invest in efforts to rapidly increase the number of product and service groups and actual product-specific PEF reports involved in the PEF scheme. Possibilities for common information basis and coordination between environmental information sources for the various product policy instruments and the PEF should be explored. Cooperation between type 1 eco-labels like the Nordic Swan and the forthcoming PEF scheme(s) is important.

EC Consumer Law

EC Consumer Law
Author: Geraint G. Howells
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1351942042

This book will describe the development of European Community consumer law and seek to determine to what extent action by the European Community has promoted the interest of consumer protection. In doing so it will consider important areas relating to protection of the consumers economic interests and physical safety, as well as questions of access to justice. In addition to assessing the success of community consumer policy the authors will also put forward suggestions for ways in which consumer protection can be enhanced at the community level.

30 Years of Swan history: Anniversary report for the Nordic ecolabel

30 Years of Swan history: Anniversary report for the Nordic ecolabel
Author: Lien, Tormod
Publisher: Nordic Council of Ministers
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9289364289

This is an account of the Swan label’s first thirty years, written in chronological order with short chapters each illustrating various aspects of the scheme. There are few areas of public life in which there have been so many vague pronouncements as for environmental protection. Perhaps that’s because it’s so easy to agree on the goals, but sohard to find the right solutions and practise what you preach. Here at the Nordic Swan, we’ve done things properly from dayone by setting concrete, measurable environmental performance requirements and turning the environment into a competitive advantage. There have been many conflicts and disagreements, but no one can deny that ecolabelling has led to significant environmental improvements. The Nordic region with its 30 million people is the world’s twelfthlargest economy, and this makes a difference when businesses plan product changes and marketing campaigns. The label is a success far beyond the borders of the Nordic region.

Environmental Certification for Organisations and Products

Environmental Certification for Organisations and Products
Author: Tiberio Daddi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2015-04-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317665678

Environmental certification is an effective tool for managing the environmental impact of companies, leveraging their competitive capabilities and ensuring their compliance with environmental principles. A growing number of countries across the world are adopting this practice and the growth of new environmental standards – with different scopes, aims and roles – calls for a clear and updated systematization of the issue. This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the different environmental certification tools. As well as examining practical methods of implementing the standards for each type of certification, the book discusses their added value from a corporate management perspective. In identifying the most important requirements and standards for the issuing of environmental certification of both products and processes, the book demonstrates how companies can use operational methods to develop an environmental management system or a product certification in practice. Balancing a complete theoretical presentation of the issue with an operational perspective, the book supports the adoption and implementation of environmental certification tools. It will be a valuable resource for professionals as well as students and scholars of environmental management, sustainable business and corporate social responsibility.

Governance of Integrated Product Policy

Governance of Integrated Product Policy
Author: Dirk Scheer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351282581

European policy patterns are in a state of transformation. New governance models are shifting power away from states and toward the involvement of all stakeholders and the idea of shared responsibility. It's a move from command and control to push and pull. What's in this new approach for the environment? This book provides a detailed analysis of the example of integrated product policy (IPP) which aims to improve the environmental performance of products and services through their life-cycle. All products cause environmental degradation in some way, whether from their manufacturing, use or disposal. The life-cycle of a product is often long and complicated. It covers all the areas from the extraction of natural resources, through their design, manufacture, assembly, marketing, distribution, sale and use to their eventual disposal as waste. At the same time it also involves many different actors such as designers, manufacturers, marketers, retailers and consumers. IPP attempts to systematically stimulate each phase of this complicated chain to improve its environmental performance. With the involvement of so many different products and actors there cannot be one simple policy measure for everything. Instead, IPP employs a whole variety of tools – both voluntary and mandatory – which are used to achieve identified objectives. These include economic instruments, the phase-out of dangerous materials, voluntary agreements, eco-labelling and product design guidelines. IPP is still in relative infancy and can be seen as an ongoing process hugely dependent on effective governance measures to ensure its continued success. This book presents a plethora of perspectives from policy-makers, researchers and consultancies, representatives from business, environmental and consumer associations on how to effectively conceptualise, institutionalise and implement IPP. The book is divided into four parts. First, the approach to the governance of IPP is examined in relation to other approaches to sustainable production and consumption. Second, the widely differing approaches to environmental product policy in practice at national, supranational and global level are analysed. Third, the book explores the challenge of designing a coherent policy mix to support the integration of sustainable consumption and production patterns by sector and theme. Finally, the book concentrates on the key issue of how to involve stakeholders in IPP in order to encourage continuous innovations for sustainability throughout the value chain. Governance of Integrated Product Policy aims to fill a clear gap in work to date on sustainable production and consumption by providing researchers and practitioners from politics, business and civil society new insights into modern environmental governance in practice.