Loblaw’s takes a swipe at ecolabels

An article in yesterday’s Globe and Mail outlined green options available to consumers in the household goods section. The article quickly devolved into a price comparison shopping exercise and general rant about how expensive green products are and how there’s a lack of standards for what’s green.

In the article Loblaw’s, which obviously prefers to retain control over whats green rather than submit itself to independent verification and expertise, took a swipe at ecolabels:

“There are a variety of different certifying bodies and no consistency in terms of what makes one product more environmentally sound than another,” says Claudio Gemmiti, Loblaw Brands vice-president responsible for President’s Choice Green products.

The Globe is right to complain about higher prices for green products. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay extra for making a green choice. Home Depot works hard to keep its eco-options prices in sync with its non-eco-options. If more retailers made the same commitment it would go a long way to driving eco-markets.

While Loblaw’s is right that there are a variety of certification bodies (more than 300 in fact). It’s a little bold to say there is no consistency between them. Even if the labels aren’t fully consistent, I’d rather trust them than some dude at Loblaw’s.

It’s also pretty weak for the journalist to hit up Loblaw’s for a quote on ecolabels. That’s like asking GM their opinion on higher fuel efficiency standards. Well gee kids, GM says there’s no consistency in fuel emissions standards across the US and Canada so I guess we shouldn’t have them.

Instead of pandering to Loblaw’s the Globe should have asked them why they can’t match Home Depot’s commitment to using credible ecolabels while using their retail power to pressure suppliers to bring down prices for eco-friendly products.

The Global Ecolabelling Network, ISEAL, and other ecolabel networks should also be all over articles like this.

Tags: news, standards
Posted by Jacob on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | Permalink |

2 comments to “Loblaw’s takes a swipe at ecolabels”

Colin Isaacs says:


All President’s Choice Green products are subject to independent third party verification in accordance with ISO 14021. This information is made available to consumers in the annual President’s Choice Green flyer, available from stores which carry President’s Choice Green. While I have no wish to denigrate Home Depot’s Eco-Options, I suggest that President’s Choice Green achieves a higher overall level of product environmental performance than Eco-Options, in part because Eco-Options covers a much wider range of products. All PC Green products explain on the product label the reason or reasons for their inclusion in the PC Green program. This is required by ISO14021 but is not followed by many other type 2 environmental labels currently in the marketplace.

I am not an employee of Loblaw Companies or any of its affiliates but the President of the company which carries out independent third-party verification of PC Green products.

Most PC Green products are priced competitively with equivalent non-green products, a fact which can be determined by a visit to the store. Where PC green products are priced higher it is because such ingredients as bio-based surfactants are priced higher in the marketplace than ingredients from non-renewable resources.

Colin Isaacs

Posted by Colin Isaacs on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 14:43 | Permalink

Jacob says:


Amendment: As per the above comment, Loblaw’s uses CIAL Group (see: http://www.cialgroup.com), to review and approve their environmental products. We apologise to Loblaw’s for this inaccuracy.

We stand by our critique of Loblaw’s comment on ecolabels and continue to believe that well established, independent labels like the “Ecologo” programme (see: http://www.ecologo.org) set the bar for quality and disclosure with regard to who’s deciding what’s green.

Posted by Jacob on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 17:26 | Permalink

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