Product stewardship for environmental improvement

According to the Environment Protection and Heritage Council, Australians are keen to see industry support a healthier environment by exercising producer responsibility to reduce the environmental impact of its products. But without government regulation on green procurement many industries are confused about what to do next.

In a comprehensive document, released in 2004, titled Industry Discussion Paper on Co-regulatory Frameworks for Product Stewardship, the EPHC outlines the importance for Australia to develop a national approach to product stewardship that ensures measurable environmental improvement within the Australian context while maintaining consistency with approaches and outcomes internationally.

In another document titled The State of Green Procurement in Australia, which was released in 2004 by Australian Green Procurement, they state the position of the Commonwealth with regard to green procurement. The government seeks to be at the forefront in environmental purchasing practice through buying goods and services that seek to minimise possible environmental impact, to work with industry to encourage continuous reduction in the adverse environmental impact of goods and services, and to assess the environmental impact of goods and services against informed and internationally recognised standards and methods.

Both documents are very positive, but the current situation in Australia is not so straightforward, as many industries are confused over the government's position on green procurement. Industry leaders understand what needs to be done yet the government will not demonstrate leadership or implement regulatory action on extended product responsibility (EPR).

Tim Edwards, executive director of Australian Green Procurement, a subsidiary organisation to the Good Environmental Choice Australia, believes government is not doing enough to regulate green procurement.

"There are lots of good intentions but not much action. Industry needs regulatory frameworks. Businesses cannot and should not incur the cost of establishing green procurement programs without an understanding of regulations that their competitors must adhere to. Green procurement is hard to implement and why should anyone do so without strong economic reasons," he says.

Part of green procurement is product stewardship, which is a product-centred approach to environmental protection. It calls on those in the product life cycle from manufacturers, retailers, users and disposers to share responsibility for reducing the environmental impacts of products.

John Gertsakis, executive officer of Product Stewardship Australia, suggests the development of a national approach to product stewardship is essential if we are serious about environmental protection and maximising environmental quality.

"A national approach also provides the context for helping ensure solutions that have environmental, economic and social relevance across all states and territories. If governments, businesses and the community are genuinely concerned about product life cycle management, then national policies as well as practical on-ground initiatives need to be developed and delivered as well".

John also believes it's important to have effective and sensible government regulation.

"There is a history of very tepid policy development which relies too heavily on isolated pockets of voluntary activity among pioneering companies. In very simple terms, effective and sensible regulation is about maximising the overall environmental benefit by ensuring that all companies in that sector are participating in national product stewardship schemes."

"The overall environmental and social benefit of trials, pilots and short-term take-back schemes, which often serve relatively small (and generally affluent) populations, is limited".

"If governments believe that product stewardship is an important policy principle that can help achieve a sustainable future, then governments should regulate as a matter of urgency. Smart regulation provides governments with an unmatched opportunity to demonstrate that it can move beyond the rhetoric of product stewardship and producer responsibility, and facilitate a measurable environmental benefit by mandating very specific targets, processes and activities for those sectors where post-consumer products are resulting in problematic environmental impacts and outcomes."

Ecolabelling and ISO-14024

Although ecolabelling programs are still in the early development stage in Australia, organisations like Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) were established to provide a particular kind of environmental assessment in the terms of ecolabelling.

GECA provides ISO-14024 certification for products and services in Australia and with Australia's trading partners. It is currently, to the best of its knowledge, the only organisation with this mandate in Australia and no other organisation that aims to provide ISO 14024.

The ISO serves to establish and standardise methods for a range of functions. Among these are the methods for environmental assessment being the 1400 series. Within the 1400 series are four environmental assessment methods that apply products and services being 14020, 14021, 14024 and 14025.

"ISO 14024 is the method for assessing the environmental load of a product or service relative to other products in the same category. For all intents and purposes, it is the only method that can be used for mass-market consideration of alternative products," says Tim Edwards.

"This is because ISO 14024 incorporates a unique combination of characteristics such as product- and service-based environmental assessment, life cycle assessment and third-party assessment. The Standard Certification is only awarded to products that meet the standard. This enables the product user to have a simple basis for identifying environmentally preferred products in a particular product category."

The Future

The Australian Environmental Labelling Association suggests that it is in the public interest and the environment's interest for Australia to continue to deliver credible environmental labelling and declarations to facilitate sustainable consumption.

A statement Tim Edwards reiterates in that the only way forward for green procurement is ecolabelling.

"Everything we consume has an environmental impact. How do we know the good impacts from the bad?" he says.

"The most important requirement is to see the environment as inextricable from economic systems. It is not a matter of triple bottom line. It is a matter of integrating environmental considerations and other externalities into our economic system so that the economic system becomes sustainable."