Storage facilities reclamation using dredged sediments from waterways: Growing media formulation for plants according to the EU Ecolabel requirements

Dredged sediments display a great potential for growing media applications; however, there are few studies about their beneficial reuse for the waste storage reclamation. This research study aims at checking the agronomic values and environmental impacts of three growing media based on waterways sediments (WSs) and green waste (GW) according ecolabel requirements. For this purpose, three growing media named GW0, GW25, and GW50 were prepared at field pilot scale by co-composting WS and GWs during 12 months. Samples were submitted to ecolabel analyses package. Following to the ecolabel requirements, the growing media comply with criteria like pH, electrical conductivity, trace elements and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contents, chlorides, and pathogens, whereas they are not in compliance with the EU Ecolabel guidelines for propagules, organic matter, and zinc contents. Results of laboratory leaching tests performed according to NF EN 12457-2 for GW0, GW25, and GW50 have shown that sulfates, soluble fraction exceed limit for inert waste storage. Lysimeter tests at pilot scale were performed during 6 months to check the leaching potential of pollutants from growing media under real field conditions, including a European ecolabel product. Results demonstrate that Ba, Mo, Sb, Zn, Se, and Sb are higher in GW0, GW25, and GW50 than in the European ecolabel. As, Cd, Cr, Ni, and F− are more soluble in the commercial product compared to other growing media. This study allowed to demonstrate that main characteristics are fulfilling for reusing these growing media in the specific field of waste storage reclamation.

A Hybrid Fuzzy TOPSIS Method to Analyze the Coverage of a Hypothetical EU Ecolabel for Fishery and Aquaculture Products (FAPs)

This study presents a hybrid fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity of the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method (FTOPSIS) to analyze the coverage of a hypothetical EU ecolabel for fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs) by integrating a synthetic indicator to determine the level of acceptance for the inclusion of different types of information apart from environmental issues, considering different stakeholders and other segments of analysis. Data were obtained from a public consultation of the EU on “ecolabels for FAPs”. The results indicate that ecolabels should not only include environmental issues but also other types of information, with social and ethical issues being the most relevant, followed by animal welfare issues, health and safety issues and food quality issues. The findings also show that consumers, producers and stakeholders who are more interventionist and support the fact that public bodies and governments should be involved in the control of eco-labeling are more accepting of including additional information apart from environmental issues. Synthetic indicators (SIs) have also been found to be mostly inelastic, except for the owners of ecolabels on social and ethical issues. The implications of the future implementation of the EU ecolabel for FAPs are discussed based on the findings.

Voluntary Ecolabels in International Trade Law: A Case Study of the EU Ecolabel

ABSTRACT One category of voluntary approaches to environmental governance is ecolabels used to nudge consumers towards purchasing environmentally friendly products. The purpose of this article is to critically review the trade law implications of voluntary ecolabels, with special reference to the EU Ecolabel. For a long time, the lack of trade disputes related to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) before the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body rendered research on the legality of voluntary ecolabels in trade law unavoidably speculative. Consequently, the existing scholarship has failed to inform the environment law community clearly how trade law views voluntary ecolabels. This article aims to fill the gap in the literature by evaluating the consistency of the EU Ecolabel with the TBT rules. The article concludes that it is highly unlikely that the EU Ecolabel may be found inconsistent with the TBT Agreement. Nevertheless, there remains some legal risks.

Towards Nearly Zero Energy and Environmentally Sustainable Agritourisms: The Effectiveness of the Application of the European Ecolabel Brand

Tourism represents an important economic driver in Italy, being responsible for approximately 13.2% of the total GDP (a value higher than the reference European average) and for nearly 10% of the regional GDP. Among the touristic sectors, the agritourist ones show a persistent growth, experiencing in 2019 a 6.7 point percentage improvement compared to the 2017 figures. Given this situation, the transition towards a low-carbon path, affecting the building sector for some time, should also involve agritourist buildings, through the release of EU directives, member state laws, and technical rules. On the other hand, agritourism sites could be awarded the Community EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, awarding the EU environmental excellence brand implies the availability of several data on building energy behavior that should then be managed by complex evaluation tools. To overcome this issue, the use of the simplified ARERA (Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy Networks and Environment) technical datasheets, issued to assess environmental improvements consequent to energy efficiency interventions in the urban residential building stock, is proposed. The application of this tool totally avoids using building computer-based simulation models, thus facilitating the preparation of the EU Ecolabel request documentation by agritourism owners. Being awarded the Community EU Ecolabel also implies approaching a net zero energy condition because of a lower energy consumption and a minor recourse to fossil fuels. For this purpose, an application of an easy graphical method, previously developed for residential and commercial buildings, which visually represents improvements achievable by a given agritourism when implementing energy efficiency measures, is presented.