DTI urges consumers to buy products with Green Choice seal

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is urging consumers to purchase and use environment-friendly products and services with the Green Choice seal to help protect and preserve the environment for a greener and sustainable future.

 “We are now experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change as the country have more frequent and intense typhoons, flash floods, and severe drought that cause serious damages to crops, properties and livelihood, and endanger thousands of lives. Thus, there is an urgent need for us, consumers, to be mindful of our actions and shift to eco-friendly practices to help combat climate change,” DTI Undersecretary Zenaida C. Maglaya said.

 “Correspondingly, the industry sectors have to take responsibility in providing eco-friendly products and services by adopting processes and technologies that have less harmful effects to the environment,” she added.

The National Eco-Labeling Program-Green Choice Philippines (NELP-GCP) is one of the DTI’s green initiatives that intend to change the preference of consumers in their purchases to push more industries to change to environmentally sound processes and technologies. It is a voluntary, multiple criteria-based, and third-party environmental performance label and declaration that aims to encourage clean manufacturing practices and to promote consumption of environment-friendly products and services.

The DTI-BPS, through the Philippine Center for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development (PCEPSDI), awards the Green Choice seal to a product or service that meets the environmental criteria established for a particular category. The DTI-BPS chairs the NELP Board, which acts as the policy-making body, with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) as co-chair.

 The PCEPSDI administers the Green Choice license application, which is based on the principles and procedures of ISO 14024-environmental labels and declarations, particularly the Type I environmental labeling or ecolabeling. The application for the eco-label is product and facility-specific and is open to all products and service in the Philippines, regardless of the country of manufacture.