Product sustainability criteria in ecolabels: a complete analysis of the Blue Angel with focus on longevity and social criteria

A basic principle for Type I ecolabels is to consider the whole product life cycle in order to avoid transferring impacts from one life cycle phase or environmental medium to another. By using the example of the Blue Angel, this paper provides an overview of the typical criteria over the product life cycle established in ecolabels for different product categories. Further, the paper provides details about two selected issues that are of particular concern in the current debate within product policy: the longevity of products and the coverage of social aspects. The presented results are based on desk research, which included the creation of product and criteria categories and a complete analysis of all existing Blue Angel criteria sets for products. The coverage of different life cycle phases with criteria is very diverse, as expected, and varies across product categories. A focus of the Blue Angel is on the use phase. While longevity criteria are present in half of the Blue Angel criteria sets, they are in most cases not too comprehensive. The current discussion on adequate methodologies with regard to reparability and longevity, in general, is however speeding up at EU level, and this will also influence ecolabels. Social criteria are still rare in the Blue Angel, especially when it comes to social aspects during raw material extraction. There is, however, the intention to elaborate a more systematic basis for social criteria within the Blue Angel. While the ongoing debates on longevity and social criteria will most likely result in such criteria being applied to more product groups in Type I ecolabels, ecolabels always have to find a compromise between coverage of ideally all relevant life cycle impacts for which an improvement potential exists on the one hand, and feasibility for licensees to comply with the criteria and provide the according verification on the other.