International Testing for Sustainable Consumption
One of the interesting presentations at the Congress was Guido Adriaenssens’ talk on how International testing of products can contribute to sustainable consumption.
Recent trends in product testing have seen the inclusion of environmental test criteria such as recycling, use of problematic materials, stand by energy and total energy consumption and life cycle analysis. Social responsibility criteria have included social criteria and transparency.
Testing and publication of test results has had a positive impact on products. These include:
- Dramatic reduction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) in DIY products and tyres in 1 year
- Reduction of standby energy from 100 to less than 1 Watt in most products
- Reduction of water and energy consumption of large household appliances by more than 50%
- Accepting CSR criteria by manufacturers increased from 40% to 80% in 3 years
This is one of more than 40 Congress presentations now on the CI Congress area of slideshare.net.
