19-1125 v3.X No Availability of Declare Labelled Products in South Africa
Question
In South Africa, Declare Labels do not yet exist and we would like to motivate the use of an alternative product certification scheme which aims to meet the criteria laid out by Declare.
Declare aims are the following:
1. To understand where a product comes from;
2. What is it made of; and
3. Where does it go at the end of its life.
Currently in South Africa there are two product certification schemes available that we believe meet the requirements stipulated by Declare.
1. Ecospecifier
The ecospecifier global Green Tag
Certification and Rating scheme is a world first Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) based ISO compliant ecolabel and Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) scheme with Green Building Council accreditation as a third party certifier.
Ecospecifier guarantees to consumers and professionals alike that all key manufacturer health & environmental claims are third party verified and assessed in a rigorous, scientific manner using a Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) analysis in combination with the unique Ecospecifier Cautionary Assessment Process or ES CAP health and eco-toxicity screen that considers the impacts of composition down to 0.1-0.001% (ES CAP and Product Category Specific Standards ranges) using Australian, European, US Standards and others as appropriate, all under the ISO 9001 Certified Quality Management System.
Green Tag products are compliant to the following:
• ISO 14024 - Type 1 Ecolabel Rating system
• ISO 14040 - Peer reviewed and audited LCA
• ISO 14025 - Type 111 Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)
• ISO 14065 - Greenhouse Gas Analysis for Conformance Assessment Bodies
• ISO 9001 - Certified Quality Management System
2. Ecostandard
EcoStandard South Africa's vision is to be an independent and trusted certification body which sets environmental standards of excellence that are used to measure and rate a product, manufacturer and or service provider. EcoStandard's mission is to establish a valuable portfolio of certified and rated products who have been awarded an EcoProduct label for their responsible design and manufacture, recognising outstanding environmental practice.
Eco standard assessment criteria are based on the criteria. The following factors are assessed when reviewing a product:
- Resources (extraction)
- Manufacturing
- Product Use
- Packaging and Distribution
- End of life/ Recyclability (Disposal)
- Environmental Innovation
Please see attached ecostandard assessment process.
We believe that the following two standards (EcoSpecifier and EcoStandard) are more applicable to the South African context and the intended goal of these to product certification schemes meets that of Declare. We therefore motivate that these two certification schemes which rate products, replace that of the requirement for Declare products in the Living Building Certification.
Answer
We appreciate the detailed information the team provided about programs in place in South Africa to address environmental impacts associated with materials. Products that meet other standards that comply with the requirements of I10 Red List (and other targeted Imperatives) may be used in the project as long as they are sufficiently documented. However, the Institute is not prepared to approve an alternative to Declare in order to meet the requirement in I12 Responsible Industry of including one Declare product per 500 square meters of gross building area.
The lack of Declare products from South Africa also has bearing on the I13 Responsible Economy Sourcing distance requirements, which provides that up to 25% of the materials costs may be sourced from any distance. A strategic approach, sourcing the majority of non-Declare products as close to the project as is feasible, and otherwise balancing product cost and sourcing distances, may enable the project to comply with sourcing requirements while importing Declare products from beyond 5,000 km.
