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According to the study Consumer and Environment Habits in Spain 2001, drafted by the Sigma Dos Group for the Entorno Foundation, 29 of every 100 Spaniards would refuse to buy a product for environmental reasons and 47% would be willing to pay a little more for an ecologically cleaner product. The study goes on to say, however, that more than 40% of Spaniards admit to being incapable of telling an ecological product from an ordinary one at the point of sale.

Itï¿½s not that we are more stupid than the rest, or care less about the environment. Itï¿½s just that being a green consumer is not easy. Itï¿½s simple enough to find out if a detergent washes whiter or if some batteries last longer than others, but how can we be sure that what we buy is as environment friendly as it says on the label? And what about when the manufacturer says nothing about the ecological merit of what he sells? Does it mean that it is more harmful to the environment than that environmentally friendly product next to it?

Although the labels giving information about a productï¿½s manufacture usually include environmental information, in many cases that information is incomplete or confusing. Or you practically have to be an expert on the subject for it to be of any use; to know, for example, that a detergent should not contain phosphates and should have the right percentage of tensioactives, or that paper should not be bleached with chlorine.

Some things are plain common sense, such as that for a washing machine to be ecological it should, among other things, have low energy and water consumption, and not make too much noise. But how can the man or woman in the street know if the kilowatts, the litres and the decibels referred to on the label actually represent a reasonable energy and water consumption, or a tolerable noise level? In this day and age even the most clued up of consumers will find it a virtually impossible task to stop and read all the small print on every label, where the maker gives you all the (occasionally misleading) information about the product. But checking everything is just too complicated and time-consuming for this society we live in, where time is money.

The ecological label was invented to save the consumer this tiresome task. It guarantees that the product carrying it is really environmentally friendly, that is, it has less of an impact on the environment than other comparable products during its complete life cycle. Since Germany created the Blue Angel, the first logo of this kind, in 1978, many countries have put similar systems of ecological labelling in place to act as a reference for consumers: the maple leaf of Canadaï¿½s Ecologo (1988), the protecting arm around the Earth logo of Japanï¿½s Ecomark (1989), the Nordic swan of the Scandinavian countries (1989), etc. Spain brought out its label -a sun shining on the horizon- in 1993, under the auspices of the Spanish Association for Standardisation (AENOR).

A year previously the European Union had created the European Ecological Label -symbolised by a daisy with a petal for every member state- with the aim of bringing the hotchpotch of European logos under one label. In principle any everyday product can be awarded this ecolabel, except foodstuffs, beverages and pharmaceutical products.

To date there are 19 categories of products that can bear the green EC emblem. These include household appliances (fridges, washing machines and dishwashers), computers, televisions, paint, light bulbs, toilet paper, mattresses, T-shirts and bed linen.

To establish the criteria for awarding this ecolabel, the impact each group of products has on the environment at each stage of their life cycle is studied. The consumption of natural resources and energy, emissions into the atmosphere, water and soil, the waste they generate, noise, sustainable management of the forests, and in some cases, the productï¿½s fitness for use are all factors which are taken into account.

Once the criteria are approved by a qualified majority of the Member States and the European Commission, they are valid for a period of three years. At the end of this period the criteria are reviewed and, depending on the state of the market and the pace of scientific and technological advances, may be made more stringent in the quest to improve the ecolabelled productsï¿½ environmental performance.

However, the European ecolabel has not really taken off yet. In its ten years of life, fewer than 100 European companies have obtained the EC label for just over 400 products. It is significant that Spain, with under 20 companies with EU certified products, is near the top of the list of countries with awards, alongside France, Denmark, Italy and Greece, and that there are still countries like Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein who still have no ecolabelled products.

The problem seems to be that countries who have there own ecolabel prefer to go on using it, among other reasons because the European Union tends to apply more stringent criteria, which would oblige many companies to make major investments to bring their production processes in line with the EC requirements.

Also the process of establishing and approving the criteria is very slow. In Spain alone, AENOR has awarded its AENOR Environment Label to more than 550 products. The Generalitat of Catalonia, which in 1994 also set up their own ecological labelling system, the Guarantee of Environmental Quality Emblem, by September 2001 had certified 806 products and 28 services from 47 companies.

On January 11th of this year, the European Commission approved a work plan to promote the communityï¿½s ecolabel between 2002 and 2004, extending its use to 30 new product categories and improving co-ordination with the national labels. And so, on its tenth anniversary, coinciding with the Rï¿½o Plus 10 Summit, the EC is hoping that its ecolabel can become the useful tool which so far it is has failed to be.

DID YOU KNOW...?
- According to the study mentioned earlier (Hï¿½bitos de Consumo y Medio Ambiente en Espaï¿½a 2001), only 8% of the Spanish are regular buyers of green products. Awareness of ecological labelling is still minimal: the environmental labels which Spaniards are most familiar with are those that say what the product is made of (38%), the Green Dot (30%) and Aenor Environmental (27%). Only 14% know about the European Ecolabel.