Haruo Uehara

Technical Manager
Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI)
(Hirokohji Bldg., Ueno 1-17-6, Taitoh-ku, Tokyo 110-8535 Japan)

Abstract

In Sub-committee No.3 (SC3) of Technical Committee 207 (TC207) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), General Principles of environmental labeling and three types of labeling, which are known as Type I, II and III, are now being discussed. This series of standardization is to be finished in the TC207 Plenary Meeting in Seoul Korea which will be held from the end of this coming May through the 1st week of June. Type I is operated by a third party practitioner. Type II is a self-declaration of environmental merit on products or services by an industrial claimants. Type III is a kind of information disclosure on the environmental burden during the whole life cycle of a product or service by an enterprise. All these labels have each specific function in the market. These international standards will be introduced into the National Standard of Japan and published as JIS. Issues regarding waste management are included in these labelling programs and they are anticipated to be effective in the reduction of waste as market indices for choosing products and services.

Key words: environmental labelling, type I label, type II label, type III label, waste reduction