rel-ecolabel

Problem

It's difficult to authenticate eco-friendly goods and services online.

• The proposed solution below is not a solution to the above problem. The proposed solution offers a mechanism by which a service can claim an eco-friendly label, but no way of authenticating that claim.

Proposed Solution

We are interested in establishing "rel-ecolabel" as a way of identifying ecolabelled (and thus eco-friendly) items (where item = ecolabel certified unit including products, services, companies, land, or any other thing that can be certified eco-friendly) on the World Wide Web.

Definition of an ecolabel: http://ecolabelling.org/eco-labels/

Examples

Ecolabelled products appear on retailer and producer sites all over the web. There is currently no way of identifying them. Several examples are presented below:

URL: http://www.amazon.com/Newmans-Own-Organics-California-15-Ounce/dp/B000FNJNO6/ref=tag_stp_st_edpp_url SCHEMA: Oregon Tilth ecolabel: http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/oregon-tilth/

URL: http://www.environmentalbychoice.com/prestigious_papers/enviro100ecofibre.php SCHEMA: FSC ecolabel: http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/fsc-forest-management-certification/

URL: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7838995&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat108700050027&id=1142297396649 SCHEMA: Energy star ecolabel: http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/energy-star/

Similar Microformats

rel-license: http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-license indicates a "that the destination of that hyperlink is a license for the current page." whereas rel-ecolabel would indicate that the destination of that hyperlink is an ecolabel for a product, company or service listed on the page.

In this case I am uncertain if rel-license defines an authoritative source for license information. The difference with rel-ecolabel is that we would define an authoritative source at www.ecolabelling.org. We'd do this because there are many ecolabels 300+ and very few display their information in a standardised way. That being said, we're not beholden to this approach.

rel-tag: http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-tag

Ecolabel Schema

ecolabel entry @ ecolabelling.org eg: http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/energy-star/

ecolabel entry @ greenerchoices.org eg: http://greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/label.cfm?LabelID=15&searchType=Label%20index&searchValue=&refpage=labelIndex&refqstr=

ecolabel ISO types eg: http://www.gen.gr.jp/eco.html

Brainstorming

rel="ecolabel"

Rel-Ecolabel is a simple, open, format for indicating ecolabelled items which is embedable in HTML or XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. Rel-Ecolabel is one of several microformat open standards. Specification 2008-05-12

Author

Jacob Malthouse (http://bigroom.ca), formerly of ICANN (http://icann.org/)

Abstract

Rel-Ecolabel is one of several MicroFormats. By adding rel="ecolabel" to a hyperlink, a page indicates that the destination of that hyperlink is the ecolabel for an ecolabelled item listed on the current page. E.g. with the following hyperlink:

<a href="http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/ecologo/" rel="license">ecologo</a>

NOTE: in the highlighted portion - is this where we would put an ecolabel code or readable URL for ecolabelling.org entry?

the author indicates that the product, company, or services has obtained an "ecologo" certification.

Multiple Licenses

Multiple such rel="ecolabel" hyperlinks indicate that multiple items on the page are available under any of the referred licenses. E.g. the following hyperlinks could be used to declare that a page is available under either an ecologo or a certified carbon free ecolabel:

<a href="http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/ecologo/" rel="ecolabel">ecologo</a> <a href="http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/certified-carbonfree/" rel="ecolabel">certified-carbon-free</a>

XMDP profile

unknown/in development

Implementations

none

List of Ecolabels

http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/ see also: about ecolabelling.org: http://ecolabelling.org/about/

References

See Also

RDFa

For contrast, the above rel=ecolabel proposal can already be implemented in RDFa using Dublin Core very easily:

 This product conforms to <a xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" rel="dc:conformsTo"
 href="http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/certified-carbonfree/">certified-carbon-free</a>

RDFa also allows these claims to be verified by the authority being linked to (in the case above ecolabelling.org) by simply providing an RDFa link back from http://ecolabelling.org/ecolabel/certified-carbonfree/ to our product page and labelling it with rev="dc:conformsTo".

Re-using dc:conformsTo is also better than minting a new rel term. dc:conformsTo can be used in a wider set of situations that "ecolabel" in that it can be used to indicate non-ecological conformance to standards too. e.g. a web page can conform to HTML 4.01 Strict, or software could conform to "Certified for Windows Vista" or a toy could conform to a particular child safety standard.