The 6 reasons why eco-labels are not a good idea for the bioeconomy
By Peter Gerhardt, director denkhausbremen They do exist for wood, paper, palm oil or cod: sustainability labels. Often these have been launched with great enthusiasm in hope for a better world, only to find out later on that overexploitation and environmental destruction simply continue. This could be due to the fact that many of these voluntary certification initiatives hold certain fundamental flaws. Hopefully, politicians, industry and civil society organisations will learn from past mistakes and take a critical look at eco-labels. This is especially true when we take a look at the current debate on bioeconomy, which is about transforming our economy from fossil to biogenic. Here, too, the call for eco-certificates is getting louder. Already today the planet is exhausted by our overconsumption of biomass: leading to overfished oceans for “Captain Birdseye Fish Fingers” and destroyed rainforests for three-euro-chicken. If fossil raw materials are to be completely replaced by biomass in the future, the question has to be: on which earth is this supposed to grow, or what environmental crimes or human rights violations do …