Sustainable products
VSS are mostly designed and marketed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or private firms, and they are adopted by actors up and down the value chain, from farmers to retailers.
[3] Over the last decades, these standards have emerged as new tools to address key sustainability challenges such as biodiversity, climate change, and human rights.
[5] The Nordic Swan Ecolabel standard, which is distributed in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, mainly refers to distinguished products that have a positive effect on the environment.
Thus the most important parameters are consumption of natural resources and energy, emissions into air, water and soil, generation of waste and noise.
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) evaluates and discloses the environmental benefits of products over their complete life cycle, from raw materials extraction to final disposition.
[8] Currently, the United States, European Union, Canada, Japan and many other industrialized countries require food producers to acquire special criteria or certification to market their products as "organic".
FSC directly or indirectly addresses issues such as illegal logging, deforestation and global warming and has positive effects on economic development, environmental conservation, poverty alleviation and social and political empowerment.
It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South.
[26] [27] The EU sustainable product policy was renewed in function of the European Green Deal and the new Circular Economy Action Plan.
The UK government is carrying out a series of actions[31] to achieve goals of sustainable consumption and production in public and private areas respectively.
Norwegian Ministry of the Environment founded Norway’s Green in Practice (GRIP), which is a public-private foundation established in 1996 to promote sustainable consumption and production.
[32] Australian government requires that certain electrical products for sale should contain mandatory energy-efficiency labeling to provide consumers with information that helps reduce energy use and green house gas emissions.
Once a product is launched into market and becomes commercialized, it enters the maturity phase, which means that the sales and the profits both reach the peak.
A 2021 study reviewed 217 analyses of on-the-market products and services, analyzed existing alternatives to mainstream food, holidays, and furnishings, and concludes that total greenhouse gas emissions by Swedes could be lowered by to date up to 36–38% if consumers – without a decrease in total estimated expenditure or considerations of self-interest rationale – instead were to obtain those they, using available datasets, could assess to be more sustainable.
[36][37][38] Less products and packaging would be needed in a sustainable carbon neutral economy, which means that fewer options would exist and simpler and more durable forms may be necessary.
