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1 Introduction

As is well known, the ‘green’ segment of the world economy accounts for less than 2 %; and in post-Soviet countries its share is a mere fraction of 1 % (SP Ecological Union 2012). In this regard, great expectations are placed on voluntary eco-certification, which should become an instrument for harmonising business interests with sustainable development targets, i.e. by promoting the economic growth while raising the level of environmental safety and improving the state of the environment (Darnall and Sides 2008).

In Ukraine the development of voluntary eco-certification is a relatively new direction of the national and regional environmental policy, which is of major significance for fulfilling Ukraine’s international commitments as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and in the framework of the EU–Ukraine Association Agenda (EC 2013; EU–Ukraine Cooperation Council 2013). Ukraine has already made certain efforts for the realisation of the indicated policy. In 2004 Ukrainian non-governmental organisation Living Planet became a full member of the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN), and in 2011 its Ecolabelling Programme was accredited through the GEN peer review process—GEN Internationally Coordinated Ecolabelling System (GENICES) (MENR 2012; GEN 2012). Furthermore, in the last 2 years Ukrainian government has been conducting a number of dynamic reforms aimed at reducing the involvement of the state in technical regulation. As a result, the scope of compulsory certification has been drastically decreased; this process was in particular supported by the adoption of a series of legislative acts regulating the voluntary eco-certification and ecolabelling.

These developments offered Ukrainian producers the opportunity of gaining access to globalised production and supply chains. However, to take advantage of this opportunity, the producers have to comply with certain requirements, e.g. prove the conformity to general or industry-specific environmental standards. At the same time, the necessary organisational restructuring could not sufficiently support and keep up a pace with this new policy of voluntary environmental certification. As a consequence, Ukrainian business had so far a very limited use of voluntary eco-certification and ecolabelling as an instrument for improving its competitiveness in domestic and international markets (see Chap. 11 for the detailed discussion on gaining and sustaining the competitive advantage based on voluntary environmental certification in the post-Soviet states).

The objective of this study is, therefore, to analyse problems and suggest possible solutions for the activation of voluntary eco-certification in Ukraine. The chapter starts with the discussion of distinctive features of voluntary environmental certification in Ukraine in Sect. 18.2. The chapter then continues with the review of issues related to Ukrainian procedure of voluntary eco-certification in Sect. 18.3. Section 18.4 provides an overview of Ukraine’s experience with ecolabelling, with a special emphasis put on the discussion of barriers hindering its development and extended use. The chapter ends with conclusions and recommendations in Sect. 18.5 highlighting which measures could activate the development of voluntary eco-certification and labelling in Ukraine.

2 Distinctive Features of Voluntary Environmental Certification in Ukraine

Until recently, the Ukrainian system of certification remained cumbersome and inefficient. This was a significant limiting factor for the integration of Ukraine into the European economic space. In this context, the EU–Ukraine Association Agenda formulated an objective of harmonising the principles of technical regulation with the EU acquis communautaire (EU–Ukraine Cooperation Council 2013). The following actions were determined as significant for the achievement of this objective: (1) limit the scope of compulsory certification as much as possible, and promote the voluntary use of European and international standards; (2) simplify the certification procedure and start the transition to the module-based conformity assessment procedures as formulated in the EU’s ‘New Legislative Framework’ for marketing of productsFootnote 1; (3) conduct administrative reforms with respect to the state regulation of certification procedure.

In an effort to comply with these obligations to the EU, Ukraine has undertaken a complete reorganisation of its certification system. Over the last 2 years, the list of products subject to compulsory certification has decreased by almost 65 %. More specifically, the compulsory certification was abolished for 50 groups of industrial products and 92 groups of other products/services (CMU 2013). As of February 2013 the certification is compulsory only for 19 product groups including approximately 200 product types. At the same time, more than 40 technical regulations on industrial products and conformity assessment procedures were introduced (e.g. Technical Regulation on Ecolabelling), which were developed in full accordance with the New Legislative Framework of the EU (Ukrmetrteststandard 2013b).

The Law of Ukraine “On main principles (strategy) of the state environmental policy of Ukraine for the period up to 2020” declared voluntary environmental certification as basis for the integrated environmental governance. And still, the organisational format of voluntary environmental certification in Ukraine has substantial differences from the European or international practice. This is caused by several reasons.

First of all, in Ukraine voluntary environmental certification is realised almost exclusively as certification of management systems on the basis of formal cross-sectoral ISO standards of the 14000 family, which were adopted in 1997 as national standards (i.e. as DSTU—State Standards of UkraineFootnote 2). Furthermore, as a rule, environmental standards of the ISO 14000 family are implemented as an add-on or improvement to the quality management systems. For example, as of 1 April 2013 in Ukraine there existed 3,064 management systems certified for conformity with the DSTU ISO 900 standard, 120 management systems among them were certified for conformity with the DSTU ISO 14001 standard (UkrSREC 2013).

With regard to the international sector-specific voluntary sustainability standards, such as Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), etc., there are no principles, criteria and indictors adapted to the local, country-specific situation. And, as the result, their application is still very limited in Ukraine. For example, only a few Ukrainian companies have certificates for conformity with the FSC standard: five wood processing companies certified their products, and one juice producing company uses Tetra Pak packages with the FSC label (Eco-Live 2012; also see Fig. 18.1).

Fig. 18.1
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A juice package used by the Ukrainian producer with a variety of labels on it, including the FSC label and a claim that the cardboard used for this package comes from sustainable sources (photograph by: Eco-Live 2012)

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This tendency can, to a certain extent, be explained by the fact that voluntary environmental certification in the majority of cases is conducted through the Ukrainian State Certification System (hereinafter referred to as the UkrSEPRO). UkrSEPRO is a set of rules and procedures for proving the conformity of products and services that are being certified to the legal requirements, technical regulations and standards of Ukraine, as well as any other national or international standards that are adopted in Ukraine (DSTU 3410-96, Art. 3).

It should be emphasised that the UkrSEPRO is strictly regulated by the state standards of the DSTU 3410–3420 series (11 standards in total), through which it is tuned for the compulsory conformity assessment; however, the UkrSEPRO system is also open for voluntary environmental certification, mainly in accordance with the ISO 14000 family. The compulsory conformity assessment is conducted for all products listed in the regularly amended official “List of products that are subjected to the mandatory certification in Ukraine”.Footnote 3 Voluntary certification through the UkrSEPRO system is carried out on the basis of an agreement between the applicant (manufacturer or supplier) and certification body. Certification of the imported products and domestic products is performed in accordance with the same procedure. The right to carry out the certification is granted to certification bodies, testing laboratories and centres, as well as to officially-recognised auditors, who are included within the UkrSEPRO register (Ukrmetrteststandard 2013a).

After a number of regulatory bodies became defunct in the process of administrative reforms, the functions of a national certification body were delegated to the structural unit of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine—the Department of Standardisation and Conformity Assessment.Footnote 4 The competence scope of this body includes the assistance available to Ukraine in joining the various international certification systems. In reality, however, its organisational and methodological activities are limited to the scope of the UkrSEPRO system.

There is no doubt that the UkrSEPRO has a number of advantages. This system is well organised at the nationwide level, its certification procedures are unified and can be applied to any company or enterprise. The UkrSEPRO register contains the complete information on certified companies and products, authorised certification bodies, and ensures the legal validity of the certification and accreditation results. Information contained in the UkrSEPRO register is freely available to any interested persons. It is also important to note that the UkrSEPRO certificate is recognised by all countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), i.e. this certificate allows the export of products to other markets.

In the broader context, the access of Ukrainian producers to other voluntary systems of eco-certification is extremely limited. At the same time, according to the data from the UkrSEPRO register (UkrSREC 2013), in 2012 the proportion of environmental certificates in the total number of valid certificates remained at the level of 2006 and constituted less than 4 %. This trend is also reflected by the stagnating dynamics in the development of environmental certification (see Table 18.1).

Table 18.1 The dynamics of voluntary environmental certification to ISO 14001 in 2012 as compared to 2006 (Source: UkrSREC 2013)
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The low flexibility of the UkrSEPRO system combined with a narrow scope of formal environmental standards of the ISO 14000 family, with which it mainly works, remains a formidable barrier to the realisation of the voluntary environmental certification concept in Ukraine. Furthermore, the voluntary environmental certification is sensitive to deficiencies in other instruments of environmental management, including environmental regulation and planning, environmental assessment, monitoring, public participation, etc.Footnote 5

The latter factor became particularly apparent in the course of a project series on national adaptation of the FSC standard that were initiated in 2003 with the support of the World Bank and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and later, in 2006–2008, supported by IKEA grant (ENPI FLEG 2012). The project encountered a number of organisational, legal and methodological difficulties. For example, it was found that there are discrepancies between Ukrainian norms and regulations on timber production and the FSC principles and criteria, that there are differences in interpretation of the ‘sustainable forest management’ concept. Another critical issue is that there is no adapted methodology for the assessment and monitoring of actual impact of certification on the environmental performance of certified companies (see Chap. 9 for the related discussion on measuring the impact of voluntary sustainability standards). Also questions of voluntary environmental certification are not sufficiently addressed by Ukrainian authorities in their plans and programmes (e.g. regional development programmes).

Therefore, following the discussion above, it is possible to conclude that there is a need in adapting the national system UkrSEPRO to make it compatible with various programmes of voluntary environmental certification. Furthermore, it might be necessary to introduce and develop other certification systems that would be specifically designed for the work with international voluntary sustainability standards in accordance with the latest developments and trends in this field.

3 The Procedure of Voluntary Environmental Certification and Its Challenges

In Ukraine, voluntary environmental certification is regulated in Art. 17 of the Law of Ukraine “On conformity assessment” (Law No. 2406-III of 17.05.2001). This Law stipulates that voluntary certification is conducted on a contract basis between the applicant (a manufacturer or a supplier) and the certification body. Voluntary environmental certification can be carried out for products and environmental management systems that are not subject to compulsory certification in the UkrSEPRO system. During the voluntary certification process, a certification body verifies the conformity of any claims with particular voluntary requirements, e.g. standards.

In accordance with the state standard DSTU 3410-96 “Certification System UkrSEPRO. Main principles”, the following items are subject to compulsory environmental certification:

  • Products and services included in the official List of products that are subjected to mandatory certification in the UkrSEPRO system;

  • Activities and objects prone to causing higher environmental risks (approved by the Cabinet of Ministers Decree No. 554 of 27.07.1995, with amendments);

  • Production and consumption waste, including objects of transboundary movement, and waste management activities;

  • Environmental management systems at enterprises producing environmentally dangerous products (in accordance with standards developed by the technical committee ISO/TC 207—Environmental management, in which Ukraine participates as an observer member);

  • Natural resources and environmental components (or their parts) that fall under the scope of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, including those harvested in the open sea by vessels under a Ukrainian flag.

The decrease in the scope of compulsory certification has brought the issue of bodies performing environmental certification higher on the agenda. In Ukraine currently there are no domestic certification bodies with broad competence in voluntary environmental certification. In practice, all certification bodies are accredited by the National Accreditation Agency of Ukraine (NAAU) in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On accreditation of conformity assessment bodies” (Law No. 2407-III), and consequently gain the right to provide certification services on the basis of formal standards, i.e. state standards of Ukraine DSTU, ISO 9000 and 14000 family standards, OHSAS standards, etc. As of 2 August 2013 there were 117 valid accreditation certificates issued by the NAAU for certification bodies, including: 32 accreditation certificates in accordance with ISO/IEC 17021:2011—Bodies providing audit and certification of management systems; 79 accreditation certificates in accordance with DSTU EN 45011-2001—Bodies for certification of products, processes and services; 6 accreditation certificates in accordance with ISO/IEC 17024:2003—Bodies operating certification of persons (NAAU 2013). As a consequence, companies willing to obtain a certificate in accordance with any other type of voluntary sustainability standards have to search for an appropriate certification body in other countries.

In addition, the analysis of services performed by Ukrainian certification bodies revealed the limited variation in scope of environmental certification. The majority of companies, which sought voluntary certification, certified their environmental management systems—ca. 60 %. Approximately 30 % of companies certified food products, consumer goods, and industrial products. Around 20 % of certifications account for various services, e.g. wholesale and retail trade, maintenance of power supply units, accommodation services, travel services, etc. Since recently, the eco-certification and labelling unit of the non-governmental organisation ‘Living Planet’ offers the Ukrainian market a new certification service, ‘Green Office’, a voluntary certification of office facilities on the basis of the private standard SOU OEM.08.036.67 “Administrative services (offices). Environmental criteria” that was developed in accordance with the ISO 14000 standards family (Living Planet 2012).

Unfortunately, the engagement with voluntary environmental certification of products in Ukraine is significantly less active than in the EU states, or even in Russia. According to information provided by Living Planet, at the moment, only 60 Ukrainian manufacturers certified their own-produced products, in total 230 brands. The procedural difficulties with voluntary certification are one of the reasons for this situation. According to the Law of Ukraine “On conformity assessment” (Art. 17), the rules for voluntary certification are established by the certification body. As the result, during the voluntary certification in the majority of cases the bodies apply procedures of compulsory certification in accordance with schemes provided by the state standard DSTU 3413-96. Table 18.2 characterises the voluntary certification procedure that is conducted in accordance with the formalised approach of compulsory certification in the UkrSEPRO system.

Table 18.2 Voluntary environmental certification schemes for products in accordance with the state standard DSTU 3413-96
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As can be seen from Table 18.2, the procedure of voluntary environmental certification for products conducted in accordance with the state standard DSTU 3413-96 can be rather complicated and expensive. However, the validity period of certificates varies only between 1 and 5 years. During such a short time it is difficult to start gaining market benefits from the certified products, and as a consequence some of the companies refuse carrying out the repeated certification.

The interest in voluntary environmental certification can be also decreased by certain difficulties in fulfilling the requirements of standards. For example, in case of the ISO 14001 standard, the auditors are often asked questions such as: How to implement the process of “continuous improvement” and how to measure its results? How to measure economic efficiency and other real benefits arising from the certification to ISO 14001? What should be done, if the environmental performance is not improved?

At the same time, the auditors are mainly involved in certification and controlling the state of enterprises. They do not have sufficient time, and sometimes also knowledge, to suggest solutions for potential problems in the post-certification period, as well as methods for overcoming developmental stagnation. The role of auditors and capacity building in promoting voluntary environmental certification should be arguably increased. The companies should have an opportunity for getting assistance with the selection of appropriate marketing strategies based on the use of voluntary environmental certification. Also, in addition to ISO 14000 family standards, companies should get easier access to certification with a broader range of voluntary sustainability standards, e.g. FSC, MSC, SAN, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), and many others.

4 The Experience with Voluntary Ecolabelling

The contemporary principles of voluntary ecolabelling in Ukraine were de facto established in 2003. At that time, Ukrainian non-governmental organisation ‘Living Planet’ with support of the government initiated the national programme “Development of sustainable (balanced) production and consumption in Ukraine”, in the framework of which an environmental certification and labelling programme was developed and implemented in full accordance with the national standard DSTU ISO 14024:2002 “Environmental labels and declarations. Type I environmental labelling. Principles and procedures”.Footnote 6 The best practice and experience from such voluntary eco-certification schemes as the German ‘Blue Angel’ (Der Blaue Engel, launched in 1978), and the EU ‘Flower’ Ecolabel (introduced in 1992) provided a strong basis for its development. The new ecolabelling programme was first presented during the Fifth Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” that was conducted from 21 to 23 May 2003 in Kiev. In 2004 Ukraine with its ecolabelling programme became a full member of the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN). And in 2011 it was the first voluntary certification scheme in the post-Soviet space to be accredited through the GEN Internationally Coordinated Ecolabelling System (GENICES).

It should be noted that Ukrainian eco-certification and labelling programme is a result of the unique non-governmental initiative that established a voluntary and independent scheme for certification of products allowing the use of ecolabels. It is based on numerous criteria and considers the environmental advantages of products within a particular product category based on the results of their life-cycle assessment (DSTU ISO 14024:2002).

Ukrainian eco-certification and labelling programme includes a label—a crane bird stylised as a green sprout that is depicted on a background resembling the Earth and symbolising life on our planet (see Fig. 18.2).

Fig. 18.2
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Ukrainian ecolabel ‘Green Crane’ (first from the left) in comparison with other ecolabels according to the ISO 14024 standard (Source: MENR 2012)

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Accreditation of the Ukrainian eco-certification and labelling programme through the GENICES provides Ukrainian producers with an opportunity to expand the market for products and services that were certified in Ukraine, as well as to obtain a license for using the ecolabels from other countries participating in the GENICES programme through a simplified procedure.

The regulatory basis of ecolabelling was strengthened by the adoption of the Technical Regulation on Ecolabelling (approved by the Cabinet of Ministers Decree No. 529 of 18.05.2011) that was drafted with due consideration of provisions of the Regulation (EC) No. 66/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25.11.2009 on the EU Ecolabel.

The Technical Regulation on Ecolabelling stipulates the requirements for the conferment and use of voluntary ecolabels in Ukraine, and specifies the procedure for developing and revising the environmental criteria. Ecolabels can be applied only to products for which conformity to the environmental criteria, established for the particular product category, has been assessed. The Technical Regulation on Ecolabelling specifically prohibits the producers and retailers from using claims, such as ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘environmentally safe’, ‘non-polluting’, ‘ozone friendly’, ‘green’, etc., as long as these claims are not duly verified. Before the adoption of the Technical Regulation on Ecolabelling, such claims were widely used on the product packaging and in advertising without proper verification of their credibility. Also the marking ‘free from …’ is only allowed if the content of the particular substance in the product does not exceed the background levels.

The label ‘Green Crane’ can be seen increasingly often on the packages of Ukrainian consumer and food products, in advertising and company materials, in offices. At the same time, ecolabelling in Ukraine still cannot be considered as a powerful instrument of sustainable consumption, as for example in the EU member states. The following issues hinder the development and extended use of ecolabels:

  • environmental criteria defining the environmental advantages are still missing for numerous categories of products and services;

  • low level of awareness about ecolabelling among the producers;

  • the consumers are often not aware of and confused by various ecolabels and seals;

  • insufficient state support and promotion of the use of ecolabels.

5 Conclusions and Recommendations

Ukrainian schemes of voluntary environmental certification and labelling are currently going through major reforms. The main directions of change include: rapid decrease in the scope of compulsory certification; transition to the conformity assessment procedures based on technical regulations; administrative reforms in the governmental regulation of certification procedures. At the same time, voluntary environmental certification and ecolabelling in Ukraine cannot be characterised by a sustainable development dynamics. The main reason for such situation is a small number of alternative options for the selection of certification programmes, which are mainly limited to schemes offered by the UkrSEPRO system. This system has a number of obvious benefits: it is well organised throughout the country, its certification procedures are uniform and are open for any interested company or enterprise. However, it is also not devoid of certain disadvantages. In particular, the UkrSEPRO system is tuned primarily for the compulsory conformity assessment, and voluntary certification within this system is limited to formal standards of the ISO 14000 family. And difficulties with measuring the real benefits from certification to ISO 14000 standards decrease the interest of business in voluntary environmental certification. Another major issue is the readiness of certification bodies to the work with other contemporary voluntary standards systems, such as FSC, MSC, IRMA, Fairtrade or SAN, etc.

A series of measures may be necessary to encourage the development of voluntary environmental certification, including the following:

  • First, the voluntary certification segment of the national certification system UkrSEPRO should be gradually adapted to work with various internationally recognised voluntary sustainability standard systems. The potential and resources of the UkrSEPRO could facilitate an increasing recognition and use of modern voluntary sustainability standards in Ukraine. However, this approach may encounter certain difficulties caused by the excessive formalisation of the UkrSEPRO system, and, as a consequence, integration of new voluntary certification schemes might be complicated.

  • Second, the voluntary environmental certification in Ukraine could greatly benefit from specific partnership programmes with leading international standard-setting organisations and voluntary standards systems. For example, newly established national offices and focal points could work on: adaptation of standards to local conditions, including harmonisation of principles, criteria and indictors; development of country-specific guidelines; capacity building programmes and consultations for the business and public, etc.

  • Third, the development of voluntary certification could be facilitated by a general organisational and economic support from the government. Green procurement programmes, providing economic benefits and tax reliefs, integration of voluntary certification with other existing environmental management instruments may serve as an example of such support measures.

  • Finally, voluntary certification will require support from the national certification body, i.e. the Department of Standardisation and Conformity Assessment of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. Such support could be: the training of national auditors; development of training methodologies and guides; assistance for certification bodies with their preparations to the accreditation; maintaining the register of accredited certification bodies and auditors, etc.