The General Department of Quality Measure Standards (The Ministry of Science and Technology) gave the information from 2009, ecological labels of the commodity products will be applied in a pilot scheme, and to 2011 it will be extended nationwide and in accordance with the route, 10% of export products, goods and 50% of consumer goods in the country will be granted ecological labels in 2020. The General Department of Environment Protection will issue ecological labels for commodity products.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Luu – Vice Chairman of Vietnam Association of Small and Medium-sized Businesses informs, at present Vietnam only has had 5% of consumer products and services meet requirements of standard to stick ecological labels, and there are not any organizations of appraising and granting ecological labels, but there are only some research programmes and models to put forward the theory.

The essential criteria in order to appraise and grant ecological labels are the appraisal of the product life cycle which is now unknown to the environment protection agencies. There are not any stipulations and documents guiding to appraise the product life cycle. On the market, there are only products getting ecological labels type II which are provided by the producers and servicers as: clean vegetables, clean meat, refrigerators with no CFC… but they have not been recognized and believed by the community.

According to Mr. Luu, all of the products as food, health products, some products with service nature… need to stick ecological labels. Especially, our nation has been a membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO), but we have not got the general standards of ecological labels, so these barriers have caused difficulties for our products when they get into some countries. Vietnam shall be in urgent need of applying the international standards of ecological labels. The ecological labels have been considered the general standards of environment which take the place of the regulations of tarrif barriers.

However, Vietnamese enterprises will have many difficulties for their products which will meet requirements of standards for sticking ecological labels. The cause is that, they have to renovate technology, invest capital… maintain the manufacturing processes as well as the output products shall have to meet all of environmetal standards. In return for that, the enterprises will raise their possibility of competition, and the consumers will feel secure to buy the products with ecological labels. 

Ecological labels or called green labels, environmental labels which can be understood as trademarks of the products and services which provide information for consumers about more friendliness with the environment than the same kind of products and services. Ecological labels are just the announcements in word, symbol or sketch in order to point out the environmental attributes of the products and services. Thus, consumers and customers will get more information about the impacts of products or services to the environment, human health and they are going to have higher awareness to the environmental problems. From this reason more and more consumers have changed their consciousness of buying goods.

There are three kinds of ecological labels: the ecological label type I is a kind of label which is certified and issued to products of manufacturers in accordance with the demands or benefits of the consumers by the Government or organizations which are independent to manufacturers or consumers. The ecological label type II is a kind of label which is self-proclaimed by manufacturers, importers and distributors, based on proofs and results from themself-assessment or assessed by other related parties in accordance with their requests. The ecological label type III is an optional label which is produced and provided for consumers by enterprises according to a voluntary program of economic industry and organizations proposed.

In the strategy of environmental protection of the country to 2010 and oriented to 2020 which is approved by the Prime Minister, striving to 2020, 100% exported goods (requirements) and 50% of products for domestic consumers (subjects labelled) of Vietnam will be stuck the ecological labels in accordance with ISO 14024. This is an important basis and orientation in order to the enterprises strive for a clean production and manufacture safety goods for domestic consumers and export. However, in Vietnam, the struggle for ecological labels is pretty new and many enterprises have not actually been interested in ecological labels.