Breaking Through Green Product Market Barriers –Workshop with Sustainable Brands Sydney 2016

Global GreenTag is presenting a workshop in Sydney next week to unpack the barriers standing in the way of green products having a greater traction in the marketplace - and exploring with participants solutions to overcome the conundrum.

"Enhanced ecolabelling can make all the difference," says David Baggs, presenting the interactive session at the Sustainable Brands 2016 workshop on Wednesday June 29.

Participants who join the workshop will be encouraged to share their current experiences and barriers in accessing key green markets and ways to overcome them.

According to Baggs "Successful organisations, use both ecolabelling and robust metrics to inform and communicate performance to their stakeholders, but conventional ecolabelling is no longer enough".

"Companies and stakeholders need both labelling and data on the sustainability impacts of products to access key markets that are demanding both easy consumer recognition as well as real metrics to integrate into management and corporate reporting but also address green procurement processes.

The evolution of integrated ecolabelling and enhanced Life Cycle Assessment methods now make that accessible to all companies," says David.

Where once pass/fail ecolabels were sufficient, consumers and other stakeholders now seek performance ratings and real data at levels of detail that suit their needs.

Sometimes the same organisation can need simple forward facing sustainability consumer communication and then more detailed information to communicate product life cycle benefits to forward thinking companies.

David adds that: 'Product Labels and Scorecards fulfill some of these needs but LCA reporting via Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are now required in specific sectors, where reporting now also needs different thinking to conventional Life cycle impact Analysis because circular economy characteristics necessitate Life Cycle Benefit Analysis (LCBA).

Such 'Beyond LCA' strategies are needed by sustainability managers to address LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) markets and link product sustainability data to professional users' procurement, corporate performance and company contributions to circular economy reporting.'

Sustainable Brands Sydney 2017 runs from June 27-29.

b-com.mci-group.com/Registration/DynamicRegistration/DynamicRegistrationPage.aspx?EventCode=SB16&SiteCode=DEFAULT" target="_blank[TO REGISTER FOR THE WORKSHOP, CLICK HERE]