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Home Environmentally Friendly Products About Eco-labelling

Eco-labelling is a term used to refer to products (and services), which are friendlier towards the environment and the health of the consumer during their entire life cycle. Meanwhile, their quality remains very high.

Consumer products (and services) are marked with a logo, which serves as a clear and comprehensible indication for the customer that the marked product (service) was subjected to evaluation by an independent third party, which has already guaranteed the quality of 330 products. Currently, more than 82 Czech and foreign companies use the Eco-label on one or more products and this number is constantly growing.

The range of certified environmentally friendly products is very broad – from toilet paper to paint on hot water boilers and from detergents to environmentally friendly services provided in tourism or education.

Eco-labelling provides a product with:

• a state-guaranteed certification of a higher utility value on the basis of passing strict tests and thereby verifying compliance with qualitative and environmental requirements,
• an international recognition which proves that the product is more environmentally friendly than competitors’ unlabelled products,
• a recommendation to customers from a number of environmental NGOs,
• a product inclusion among the products prioritised by all institutions which use the system of green procurement.

Eco-labelling logos of the Czech Republic and of the European Union

Global Eco-labelling Network

GEN – Global Eco-labelling Network – is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1994. This global network for labelling environmentally friendly products includes individual national and international programmes from all over the world. Currently, it has 26 members and 4 associate organisations.

The impetus for its foundation was given by the effort to collect information about all existing eco-labelling programmes, individual procedures of selection and subsequent standardisation of relevant environmental criteria.

The Czech Ministry of the Environment has been a GEN member since 2000. In 2003, from 20 to 25 October, the Ministry of the Environment hosted the 10th annual session of this organisation, which was primarily dedicated to mutual cooperation and harmonisation of individual programmes.

Within this network, the Environmentally Friendly Products Agency concluded agreements on close cooperation concerning the eco-labelling programmes in Taiwan and New Zealand.

GEN Member logo

Green Office and Regulation of the Government of the Czech Republic No. 720/2000

The Government Regulation No. 720/2000 of 19 July 2000 addresses the issue of sales promotion and advancement and utilisation of environmentally friendly products. By means of this Regulation, the government advised members of the government, heads of other central bodies of public administration and heads of district authorities to comply with the following procedures in their organisations:

• when awarding public contracts pursuant to Act No.199/1994 Coll., on Public Procurement, as amended, pertaining to the supply, installation and use of a product, environmental friendliness of a product should be included as one of the criteria in the evaluation of the bids,
• a direct purchase of environmentally friendly goods and products is prioritised (e.g. repair works on both the interior and exterior of buildings and on their equipment - furniture, copiers, lighting, office paper, sanitary supplies etc.)