international standards for eco-labeling

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for ecolabeling were set by dozens of countries working throughout the 1990s to develop standards for sustainable environmental management.

ISO 14020: Environmental Labels and Declarations - General Principles

Establishes a set of principles that must be followed by any practitioner of environmental labeling.

ISO 14024: Environmental Labels and Declarations - Type I Environmental Labelling - Principles and Procedures

Specifies the procedures and principles that third-party certifiers, or ecolabelers, must follow. Among the most important of these relate to avoidance of financial conflict-of-interest, use of sound scientific methods and accepted test procedures, and openness and transparency in the setting of standards. 

The Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) was founded in 1994 as a non-profit association and information exchange forum among worldwide, third-party, environmental performance and ecolabeling organizations. Green Seal helped to found the Network in 1994 for the purpose of improving, promoting, and developing the ecolabelling of products and services. The Green Seal process has been peer-reviewed by the GEN Internationally Coordinated Ecolabelling System (GENICES).