Promoting the ecological quality of products and eco-labels

Companies' concern for the environment covers both regulatory aspects (compliance with existing regulations) and voluntary approaches. Among the latter, we generally distinguish two approaches: one focused on production sites and the other on products. In practice, this distinction appears somewhat formal, as the two approaches converge on many points and both contribute to the environmental improvement of the activities in question.

The "product" approach consists in reducing the environmental impact of a given product, taking into account all or part of its life cycle (from manufacture to final disposal). Efforts to increase a product's ecological quality are enhanced by communicating this ecological character to end consumers, so as to influence their choices when making a purchase. This communication can be carried out freely (a manufacturer's self-declared ecological credentials) or through certification according to a pre-established procedure and criteria. Ecolabels are official signs of a product's ecological quality, and are designed to satisfy and even develop consumer expectations in terms of the validity and sincerity of ecological messages.

The major challenge of these various forms of promotion, which are voluntary by nature, lies in their credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and in their dissemination of best practices to all manufacturers, which is the only way to ensure well-founded, lasting recognition of the environmental progress achieved.