Got Labels? Figure out what eco labels mean…

If you try to buy organic, natural, Fair Trade, and otherwise ethical goods and food, the thing that will throw you the most are the labels. There are organic labels, nature labels, sustainable labels, and everything in between. In fact, according to ecolabelling.org, “Market research indicates that there are over 500,000 ecolabelled products on the market right now.” Of course, we all know that that pool of labels is continually growing.

Ecolabelling can help you make sense of many of these labels. The goals of this site (for consumers) is to gather eco labels in one place. They define an eco label as, “Any consumer facing logo that claims an added environmental or social benefit.” Besides just gathering up labels they provide basic data and analysis on the labels.

So for example, head over to ecolabelling.org and type ‘organic coffee’ into the search box and you’ll come up with Bird Friendly Coffee which offers an image of said label, info on how many companies use the label and info on who certifies the label.

Besides searching by keywords you can also look for companies by type, i.e. organic food or buildings or retail goods and also by name.

This is a helpful resource if you need to make sense of a specific eco-label or simply want to browse for kicks.