The “Made Green in Italy” is a new voluntary national scheme for the environmental assessment of products in the LCA system (Life Cycle Assessment) and the first to communicate and certify their environmental footprint at the national level. Promoted and developed by the Italian Ministry of the Environment, the “Made Green in Italy” represents a conformity assessment scheme and a quality mark. In fact, with its specific environmental label, it characterizes products that meet the “Made in Italy” requirements and comply with the benchmarks necessary to be judged sustainable at a national level.
To obtain the mark, the impact of a company or product is compared to a benchmark, a reference index established at the national level: products with better performance than this index are identified as Class A and can use the mark. Those that only meet the benchmark instead are identified as Class B and can only use the mark if they commit to reducing their environmental impact in the future. Products below the index, identified as Class C, are excluded from using the mark.
It is an essential tool that combines the declaration of sustainability of products to their being produced in Italy to demonstrate that the high-quality products “Made in Italy” can also be green and, therefore, environmentally sustainable. The certification scheme “Made Green in Italy” has many similarities with the Environmental Product Declaration – EPD but adopts the methodology of the European approach of PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) in the assessment of sustainability parameters. It allows calculating the EF by measuring the impact of the product at each stage of the life cycle, from the production of raw materials to its use by the consumer until its end of life.
It then becomes part of the family of product environmental performance declarations, based on the quantification of environmental impacts through product life cycle assessment methodologies, with independent third-party control and in the context of type III environmental labels, following ISO 14025 (“Labels and environmental declarations – Type III environmental declarations”). It was published in the Official Journal (Gazzetta Ufficiale) at the end of May 2018 as a Regulation for the implementation of the voluntary national scheme for the assessment and communication of the environmental footprint of products, adopted by the Minister of the Environment, entering into force in June 2018.
What is the purpose of the mark? The aim is the promotion of innovative production technologies and disciplinaries to improve product performance and reduce environmental impacts during their life cycle. But also to strengthen the image and the communicative impact of Italian productions through the exaltation of environmental sustainability associated with “Made in Italy” quality. With this new scheme, Italian products are thus promoted through certified technical declarations that guarantee stakeholders the veracity of statements on the environmental sustainability of national products. In this way, the credibility of Italian productions abroad is also strengthened, and consequently, their internationalization is encouraged.
According to the scheme “Made Green in Italy”, the accredited certification is an effective tool that protects both citizens and the environment, supporting businesses and the national economy because it can create more competitiveness. This is especially in view of the growing demand for safe products with high environmental value both on the domestic and international markets.
