advise the purchaser of the environmental characteristics of the products and services through symbols, graphics or diagrams presented on the products or the wrappings. In order to promote green purchasing, it is necessary to inform the consumers how products and services meet the environmental criteria in an appropriate and comprehensive manner. Environmental labels therefore play an important role in the efforts to change the consumer activities of all citizens to pro-environmental.

As for environmental labeling, international organizations and regulators are establishing principles in order to ensure that environmental labels provide information appropriately. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) issued the “Environmental Label and Declaration” as an international standard for environmental labeling, and stipulated the definitions and requirements for three types of labeling schemes: Type I, Type II, and Type III, and stipulated each of their definitions and requirements (Figure 4-3-3). In addition, there are also environmental labels based on the laws (e.g. Energy-Saving Labeling system, Uniform Energy-Saving Label system, the fuel economy public disclosure and vehicle labeling system) and environmental labels based on the accreditation systems of local governments.

The environmental labeling system based on laws in Japan is the system of Uniform Energy-Saving Labeling. The Uniform Energy-Saving Labeling programme was launched in 2006, based on the Act on the Rational Use of Energy (Act No. 49 of 1979). The Act stipulated that the retailers conduct the public disclosure of energy efficiency information for their products, and the labeling was applied to three designated electric home appliances: air-conditioners, TV sets, and electric refrigerators. Later, the labeling was applied to more products, and as of April 2010, labeling is applied to air conditioners, TVs, electric refrigerators, electric toilet seats and (residential) florescent lights. Because those products consume large volumes of energy and the energy-saving capabilities vary from product to product, it is stipulated that they must be labeled by a Uniform energy-saving label (Figure 4-3-10). Such labeling provides easy-to-understand information to the citizens, and contributes to the selection of environmental products. The environmental labeling will lead to contributions to establishing a sustainable society by shifting demand toward environmental goods.

### E. Environmental Management Systems

Activities of the organizations and businesses voluntarily working on environmental conservation, setting their own policies and targets in their operations and management and making efforts towards those policies and targets are referred to as "environmental management", and the systems for promoting environmental management within factories and offices are referred to as "environmental management systems." Environmental management is an effective technique for making business activities more environmentally conscious, and it is expected that a wide range of organizations and businesses will actively adopt and work on environmental management.

Japan has a government-stipulated environmental management system called Eco Action 21. The Ministry of the Environment has been developing the Eco Action 21 Program since 1996 in order to provide a wide range of small- and mid-size commercial businesses with easy methods of awareness-raising regarding their relation to the environment, establishing environmental targets, and voluntarily taking environmental targets, and to take voluntary environmental actions. The Ministry of the Environment has continued to promote the program up to the present day.

Eco Action 21 is a program that consolidates envi-

Table 4-3-3 "Environmental Labels and Declarations," standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

Relevant ISO standards (year adopted) and names	Feature	Description
ISO 14020: 1998
Environmental labels and declarations
General principles	Principles of guidance	· Required to be used with other applicable standards (Type I, II, III) in the ISO 14020 series
· Not intended to be used for certification or registration purposes
Notes: ISO 14020: 1998 was established in 1999 as JIS Q 14020. ISO 14020: 1998 was revised slightly in 2000.
Type I	ISO 14024: 1999
Environmental labels and declarations
- Type I environmental labeling
- Principles and procedures	Environmental labeling by third-party certification	· Operation by a third-party certification organization
· Product categories and certification criteria determined by certification organizations
· Upon application by the business, screening is done and mark is approved
Note: In Japan, this was established as JIS Q 14024 in 2000.
Type II	ISO 14021: 1999
Environmental labels and declarations
- Self-declared environmental claims
(Type II environmental labeling)	Self-declaration of environmental claim by businesses	· Assesses compliance with in-house standards, and claims the product's environmental improvements to the market
· Applies also to promotional advertisements
· No judgment by a third party is taken into account
· Can be employed by all parties who benefit from environmental claims, including manufacturers, importers, distributors, retailers, etc.
Note: In Japan, this was established as JIS Q 14024 in 2000.
Type III	ISO TR 14025: 2000
ISO 14025: 2006
Environmental labels and declarations
Type III environmental declarations
Principles and procedures	Labeling of quantitative data on environmental impact of the product's lifecycle	· No judgment is made on acceptance or rejection
· Only quantitative data is displayed
· Judgment is left up to purchasers
Note: In Japan, this was established as JIS Q 14025 in 2008.

Source: Ministry of the Environment “Guidelines for Environmental Representations (Eco-labeling): A framework for providing the appropriate and easily recognizable environmental information (Second Revised Edition)”