standards

Setting Standards for Environmental Goods

Setting Standards for Environmental Goods

Trade in environmental goods plays a central role in addressing global environmental challenges. It facilitates the advancement, adoption, and dissemination of environmental technologies to mitigate environmental risks, reduce pollution, and optimize resource utilization. In ATC’s previous Policy Brief (23-02), we discussed two main categories of environmental goods: 1) products that are supportive of environmental protection or yield positive environmental outcomes and 2) products that are comparatively more “environmentally friendly” than similar products serving the same purpose.

The latter category presents particular challenges for the trading system, as identifying environmentally friendly goods necessitates clear criteria and standards, which can be complex to define. Moreover, establishing interoperable standards and labelling criteria for environmental goods requires a delicate balance between setting ambitious environmental objectives and ensuring feasibility and cost-effectiveness for manufacturers. The absence of universally accepted standards and labels for environmental goods leads to variability across countries and regions, which can hinder trade and create disparities in the assessment of product environmental performance. Despite the challenges, institutional and country-level initiatives have gained momentum in developing internationally recognized standards, particularly in areas such as carbon footprint measurement, energy efficiency, water efficiency, and greenhouse gas emissions. Quantification of such production emissions and performance outputs provide increased knowledge base and data to promote international cooperation in the exchange of environmental and trade policy-relevant technical and scientific information, and support work to harmonize product standards and labels relevant to achieving environmental objectives. Our newest Policy Brief, released today, discusses two types of environmental standards and labels – mandatory or voluntary. Mandatory standards and labels are imposed by government regulations and can be considered non-tariff measures (NTMs). Voluntary standards, on the other hand, are typically developed by non-governmental entities or corporations and are not regulated by laws. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, and their selection depends on industry-specific objectives and regulatory environments.

The Need for Sectoral Annexes in RCEP

While overall rules for standards and conformity assessment procedures in RCEP are necessary to reducing non-tariff barriers in Asia and facilitating trade, the example of cosmetics shows why sectoral approaches are also important.  Individual industries face particular challenges that cannot always be handled through generalized rules.  Cosmetics firms need to know which substances can, and which substances cannot, be included in products prior to manufacture.  Government officials are not always well positioned—on their own—to know the answers to such questions as which coloring agents might usefully be included in cosmetic products in the first place.  Hence it is also important to include industry representatives in the creation of rules and regulations.  Government should have the final say, but there is clearly a role for industry in crafting sensible policies that apply to a particular sector.