The Nordic Swan Ecolabel
The project objective for The Nordic Swan Ecolabel is to make it easier to live sustainable in the Nordic region by using our core strengths: our overall mission to be a guide to the environmentally best products and services, our high recognition (98% of the northerners recognise the label) and our position as a trustworthy ecolabel, covering a wide range of areas.
The scope of Nordic Ecolabelling’s participation in the Sustainable living programme has been divided into four parts:
"We need to continue exploring new product groups for the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, thereby helping consumers and procurers in their everyday life to make more sustainable choices. And to assure companies guidance in what is a sustainable progression of their products.”
– Karen Dahl Jensen, Manager Product Development at Nordic Ecolabelling
Key outputs
We can see that our projects have made a great impact in the Nordics and made it easier to live more sustainably.
The new criteria for E-commerce logistics assures that a large share of the Nordic consumers now can choose Nordic Swan Ecolabel transports when shopping online.
By expanding the types of new buildings or renovation projects that can be ecolabelled we have made it far more easy to build more sustainably, and more people will meet, stay or live in ecolabelled buildings during their everyday life. Add to that, new criteria for Building operations and Window replacement, will lead to climate, energy and resource savings.
Furthermore, we have strengthened the climate requirements in more than 70% of the product groups with high relevance for climate, thereby surpassing the target of 60%.
The Nordic consumer campaign “Hard to get. Easy to choose” and cases covering the reduced climate impact from Nordic Swan Ecolabel products and services, has efficiently contributed to a significant rise in spontaneous awareness, knowledge and preference, as well as positioning the Nordic Swan Ecolabel as a good choice for the climate. 81 % of the northerners trust a Nordic Swan Ecolabel product to be a good choice for the climate.
Nordic Ecolabelling has collected data from our licensees and brand owners, making it easier to search for and find products on our web sites. Moreover, we have continued our digital transformation towards a more accessible and user-friendly application system, making it easier for licensees to apply.
Policy recommendations
Our strongest recommendation is that you see the Nordic Swan Ecolabel as an efficient tool for the green transition, and hence the importance of the Nordic Swan Ecolabel to continue its development within new and existing areas.
However, we can see that moving forward, it is important not to focus only on one environmental issue, such as climate, but to use a holistic approach.
It is equally important to make sure that we continue to attract consumers and companies in the future. Therefore, we need to develop a way to communicate with the young audience and build a concept that attracts more companies to apply for a licence.
And, finally, a continued focus on getting and maintaining good quality data is important to make it easy for consumers to find ecolabelled products.
Future directions
With the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers, we have achieved a lot during these four years. But there is still much work that needs to be done. Based on the experience and the outcomes of the last four years Nordic Ecolabelling recommends the following:
- to continue to strengthen requirements and develop more product groups – but using a holistic perspective within areas that assure even more circular economy, less hazardous chemicals, preserved biodiversity, resource efficiency and reduced climate impact,
- to continue to position the Nordic Swan Ecolabel as a good choice for the climate, but develop the communication concepts to also include other environmental parameters,
- to expand and develop the communication concept to new targets groups such as young people and companies,
- to continue to focus on collecting the right data for certified products, thereby securing digital availability for our different target groups,
- to continue to develop and improve our digital solution – not only based on the existing experience and concepts but also considering new technologies and possibilities like AI.
Read more about the Nordic Swan Ecolabel for enabling Sustainable Living here.
Photo: The Nordic Swan Ecolabel