Ecolabel is a green con, say opponents
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Your support makes all the difference.A CAMPAIGN against the European ecolabel, the scheme which is supposed to guarantee that products are environmentally-friendly, was launched yesterday, with leading environmentalists and consumer representatives joining forces with more than 90 green organizations and 'cruelty-free' companies. ts and consumer representatives yesterday Wed joined more than 90 green organizations and 'cruelty-free' companies in a campaign against the European eco-label, the scheme which is supposed to guarantee that products are environmentally-friendly.
The campaign, which could result in a boycott backed by much of the environmental movement, was launched because products can be awarded the ecolabel despite having been tested on animals an issue viewed by consumers as one of the top 'green' concerns.
Anita Roddick, managing director of the Body Shop, which is already boycotting the scheme, described the rule permitting products tested on animals to receive an ecolabel as 'Monty Python methodology'. According to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, it is a 'big green con'.
The BUAV is printing 60,000 leaflets asking people to protest to the UK Ecolabelling Board. Its campaign was yesterday backed by Jonathon Porritt, the environmentalist, Pauline Green, president of the European Parliament's all-party consumer affairs group, and the Labour Party, as well as groups such as the RSPCA and the Vegetarian Society.
Mr Porritt described the board as 'gutless' and said it had given in to a powerful lobbying lobby by multinational companies. Ms Roddick said there had been an 'unholy alliance between big business and bureaucrats'.
The ecolabel was meant as a corrective to the plethora of false green claims made by manufacturers. It is being introduced on products ranging from hairsprays and deodorants and shampoos to paints and detergents. The first ecolabel was awarded in the UK last November to the Hoover New Wave dishwasher. The UK board argues that animal welfare issues are not 'environmental' and says some southern European states would dispute their inclusion, delaying the introduction of ecolabelled products even further.
However, Mr Porritt said yesterday that concern over animal welfare in southern Europe, while lower than the UK, was still 'incredibly high'. The idea that environmental issues did not include animal welfare, he added, was 'primitive and intellectually bankrupt'.
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