Good Environmental Choice Australia on YouTube

Good Environmental Choice Australia on You Tube
GECA has produced a series of community service announcements (CSA's) to help create greater awareness about the Environmental Choice Australia ecolabel. The CSA's are now on You Tube. The links have also been placed on the GECA website.

To see the CSA's on You Tube please visit;
Good Environmental Choice Paint (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CXrtDvFrE)Good Environmental Choice Cleaners (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZisLIoEh1o)Good Environmental Choice Certification (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZ9PpAIPO0)

Another Australian First - GECA Certified Cleaning Service
Rapid Response Property Services Pty Ltd became the first Cleaning Service to be awarded the Environmental Choice Australia Ecolabel in July 2009. This expected to be the first of many companies as interest grows amongst facility managers, property managers, property owners and tenants for green cleaning services. The GECA Cleaning Services Standard assess the environmental and social impact of a cleaning service including the procedures, equipment, transport, procurement, chemical use, waste and water management, continuous improvement and ethical activities. A growing number of GECA certified cleaning chemicals and products from more than 22 companies allows Rapid Response to exclusively use environmentally preferable products.

Members and Newsletter subscribers who are interested in Green Cleaning services can contact Paul Cacopardo on 0411 966 809.

GBCA Third Party Certification Assessment Framework
In July, the Green Building Council of Australia released its Third Party Certification Framework. The GBCA has recognised the quality of the GECA program for many years and has confirmed that it will continue to recognise GECA's standards and the Environmental Choice Australia ecolabel for the next twelve months during which time GECA and other parties will be invited to apply for assessment and ongoing recognition under the new Framework.

GECA would like to assure all our members that the GECA program and its standards will remain relevant to Green Star. Our goal remains to develop standards that will achieve the highest levels of recognition in the broader Australian market. GECA will continue to communicate to members about our work relating to the GBCA framework.

Upcoming GECA Member Forums
Good Environmental Choice Australia will hold its next GECA member forums in Melbourne and Sydney in early October. These events will provide interested GECA members a detailed overview of the GBCA third Party Certification Assessment Framework, how GECA will remain relevant to Green Star and what licensees can expect to see in current and future standards updates. There will be one event in Melbourne and Sydney and they are for GECA members only.

Further details will be sent out to members shortly.

Bill Jones Invited to UN Leadership Forum on Climate Change
Bill Jones, CEO of Sustainable Living Fabrics and Director of GECA has been invited to participate in the UN Leadership Forum on Climate Change in New York in September.

With only 200 invitations extended to a range of heads of State and Government, CEO's, Civil Society leaders and Heads of UN Agencies, GECA is proud to see Sustainable Living Fabrics a long standing GECA member recognised as a leader in addressing climate change.

To set the stage for Copenhagen, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has convened this Forum and discussions will centre on building positive momentum for climate negotiations and how business can be part of the solution.

NSW Parliament Public Accounts Committee Enquiry into Sustainable Procurement
GECA CEO Ian Higgins and Director Sue Little contributed to a NSW Parliamentary Enquiry on Sustainable Procurement which aims to define NSW procurement policy into the future. GECA argued that leadership from Government on sustainable procurement is critical to stimulate rapid change in the market. The most important tool to achieve this was through the use a broadly accepted ecolabel. Historically, the breadth of certified products has been a limiting factor. This is now changing and there are well over 1,000 GECA certified products from more than165 companies.

2009 Green Marketing Trends Report
This month the advertising agency Go Green Creative released The 2009 Green Marketing Trends Report. The report contains information on the state of green purchasing, consumer feedback on the state of green marketing and consumer feedback highlighting how professional marketers can overcome some of the current shortfalls in green marketing and advertising.

The findings of this report are consistent with those in the study completed by GECA and the Mobium group in August 2008. This report highlights widespread consumer support for 'eco-labelling' and 3rd party independent certification programs to help bring transparency to the market. Consumers felt common catch-phrase terms like 'Environmentally Friendly' and even 'Carbon Neutral', a term which is growing in popularity due to the increased number of businesses and corporate companies undertaking carbon footprint audits, were vague and did not accurately communicate environmental credentials.

Whilst the study highlighted widespread consumer scepticism about green claims, 95% of consumers said they were prepared to pay a price premium for genuine sustainable products and 94% said they'd pay more for services from businesses who were working hard to actively reduce their environmental impact. The author of the report believes that those who can bring products to market, that work just as effectively as competing products, are priced within 10% of competing products and can clearly & transparently communicate a strong eco-advantage will gain market share.

The report can be downloaded for free at http://www.gogreencreative.com.au.

GECA Standards Update
All GECA standards are routinely reviewed to re-set environmental benchmarks that reflect stakeholder feedback and technological improvements. The GECA standards team has been working feverishly over recent months and have a number of revised standards that will be ready for public comment in the coming months. We wish to thank all those that contributed to our Standards review workshops in Melbourne and Sydney recently.

The following standards reviews are in the final stages of completion;

• Furniture and Fittings.
• Carpets - (this standard combines three existing GECA standards including Broadloom Carpets, Commercial Modular Carpets and Wool Carpets).
• Floor coverings.
• Panel boards.
• Hard Surfaces.
• Architectural Paints and Coatings.
• Cleaning Products.

The majority of existing benchmarks will remain the same, but and some benchmarks will be lifted as part of continuous improvement. GECA's existing procedures require that When changes to benchmarks are proposed by GECA, its members, or the public, these benchmarks will only be adopted once they are agreed by consensus by the following parties in accordance with GECA's existing procedures;

• GECA Technical Working Groups, convened for every standard review and representative of a diverse range of views.
• GECA Standards Committee, comprised of experienced representatives from the auditing industry, and
• Public Feedback period, allowing the Australian public to have a say.

GECA at Recent Events
GECA has been involved with a number of exhibitions and speaking engagements during the last six months to increase awareness of the ecolabelling program, increase brand awareness, and form collaborative agreements to deliver additional value to the GECA licensees. Exhibitions, and speaking opportunities have been the main areas of activity to promote, educate and acquire new applications. Our message has reached thousands of Architects, industry professionals and consumers.

Recent events;

• Green Cities Brisbane (February).
• Green Procurement Courses with CIPSA (February to July).
• BSCAA Breakfast Seminar Sydney (March).
• Designex Expo Melbourne (April).
• Green Hospitals Conference Melbourne (May).
• Laminex - Building the Education Revolution Adelaide (June).
• Hargreaves Institute Sustainability Forum Melbourne (July).
• Saturday in Design + Friday Sydney (August).

Up Coming Events
Cleanscene Expo and Conference Sydney Showground, Olympic Park, Homebush 29th of October. GECA will deliver a presentation on the environmental and commercial benefits of cleaning green and the importance of credible third party certification for environmental claims to the cleaning industry professionals and products manufacturers.

Green Procurement Training
This year, GECA has been delivering the Green Procurement training program in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply Australia and New Zealand (CIPSA). The courses are taught by Suzanne Little and Sonja Duncan.

To enrol in the Green Procurement Course call the CIPSA office on 1300 765 142.

GECA Staff Changes
After two years as a director of GECA, Nick Capobianco has decided to scale back his involvement with the organisation in order to develop his other career interests. Nick has resigned from the board, but he will be providing some ongoing marketing support to the organisation. We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Nick for his positive contribution to the GECA board during a time of significant growth and change.

Do You Have News?
If you have news that you think other GECA members want to know about, then let us know. You can send your news into management@geca.org.au.