John Polak is the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) and the founder of TerraChoice. I had the good fortune to speak with him recently and during our conversation I collected enough of his knowledge and insight to last a dozen posts at least. Consider it the John Polak series, and this is part one.
To sum up GEN as quickly as possible, the organization was started in 1994 under the auspices of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and today has 28 members on its roster. It was originally formed as a cooperative venture to facilitate consistency among Type 1 ecolabels and to bring qualified ecolabelling groups around the world together to share information and analysis. In the 1990s it moved into a defensive posture to ward off attacks from organizations afraid that GEN would become a barrier to trade. Today it is in a position of strength as more and more countries recognize the benefits of ecolabelling and realize how it can positively impact trade as well as the environment.
At the last GEN annual meeting, much of the focus was on GENICES, a mutual recognition program among ecolabelling organizations around the world. In its pilot stage now, GENICES involved a peer review process so that products certified by one country’s organization can be more easily recognized under another country’s ecolabelling program. Organizations that participate essentially put in place an umbrella agreement. If, for example, a Canadian company wants certification of a product in Taiwan, the Taiwanese can look to see if they have a similar product standard in place and, if so, automatically certify the Canadian product based on prior review of the Canadian standard.
GENICES is part of a broader GEN agenda that includes addressing the confusion surrounding ecolabels today, the appropriate scope of ecolabeling, and the growing overlap with international policy work. In the coming months I will address these issues as best as possible based on my initial conversation with John and hopefully future ones as well. These “John Polak series” posts won’t be consecutive, but I will intersperse them often with other posts on EcoLogo products and standards development work.
One final note, EcoLogo is accredited by GEN as a Type 1 ecolabelling program. It is the only GEN-accredited EcoLogo program in North America today.
Posted by Kate in Environmental standards