ISO Principles for Environmental Labels and Claims

These principles are part of ISO 14020, they serve as a prerequisite for all the other standards in the series.

1. Environmental labels and declarations shall be accurate, verifiable, relevant, and not misleading.

2. Procedures and requirements for environmental labels and declarations shall not be prepared, adopted, or applied with a view to, or with the effect of, creating unnecessary obstacles to international trade.

3. Environmental labels and declarations shall be based on scientific methodology that is sufficiently thorough and comprehensive to support the claim and that produces results that are accurate and reproducible.

4. Information concerning the procedure, methodology, and any criteria used to support environmental labels and declarations shall be available and provided upon request to all interested parties.

5. The development of environmental labels and declarations shall take into consideration all relevant aspects of the life cycle of the product.

6. Environmental labels and declarations shall not inhibit innovation that maintains, or has the potential to improve, environmental performance.

7. Any administrative requirements of information demands related to environmental labels and declarations shall be limited to those necessary to establish conformance with applicable criteria and standards of the labels and declarations.

8. The process of developing environmental labels and declarations should include an open, participatory consultation with interested parties. Reasonable efforts should be made to achieve a consensus throughout the process.

9. Information on the environmental aspects of products and services relevant to an environmental label or declaration shall be available to purchasers and potential purchasers from the party making the environmental label or declaration.
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