Guidelines for Eco-labelling on Products

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources if his Ministry will introduce guidelines for the eco-labelling of products to prevent consumers from being potentially misled by non-governmental sanctioned eco-labelling initiatives in the future.

We are encouraged by the increasing awareness of eco-labels among consumers in recent years. Eco-labels are one form of environmental performance certification which can be useful in helping consumers make informed decisions when purchasing environmentally friendly products.

There are several internationally well-established organisations, such as the International Organisation for Standardisation, which establish guiding principles and procedures for the development of eco-labelling programmes to identify products which are environmentally preferable. Taking guidance from them locally are the Singapore Green Labelling Scheme (SGLS), which is administered by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) and the Singapore Green Building Product Labeling Scheme, which is administered by the Singapore Green Building Council.

My Ministry will continue to encourage the administrators of other eco-labels to take reference from these international guidelines to build public confidence in the credibility of their labels with a view to move more people towards environmentally sustainable purchasing practices.

Mdm Speaker, I thank the Minister for his reply. Just a few quick supplementary questions. Would there be anything to stop a private organisation from setting up their own private eco-labelling initiative? Will there be anything in the law or elsewhere that would stop a private organisation from doing so, without any connections with international standard bodies or any of the other bodies like SEC that the Minister mentioned? And if there are no such restrictions, how would consumers be able to tell if this is really a credible eco-labelling or otherwise?

In Singapore, there are credible organisations like SEC, which even the Government has taken the signals from in their purchases. In fact, from last year onwards, we have been purchasing paper based on SGLS issued by SEC. Therefore, I urge consumers to use the same credible bodies in making their choices.