What is the Eco Index
The Eco Index is a ground-breaking environmental assessment tool designed to advance sustainability practices within the outdoor industry. It provides companies throughout the supply chain a way to benchmark and measure their environmental footprint, allowing them to identify areas for improvement and make informed sourcing and product life cycle decisions. Although rooted in the outdoor industry, the project’s output and tools have a wide range of applicability to other industries and sectors. The Eco Index initiative is led by Outdoor Industry Association and the European Outdoor Group and has been facilitated by Zero Waste Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on developing standards, tools and practices that lead to a more sustainable future. The European Sustainability Working Group and the US Eco Working Group are collaborating in order to ensure consistency in the development and deployment of sustainability tools and solutions for the global outdoor industry.
Eco Index purpose
The Eco Index will be used by companies to incorporate environmental considerations into product design and to manage their supply chains in a way that supports their environmental goals.
The intention for the index is to enhance transparency within the supply chain and facilitate communication with suppliers.
The current focus of the index is to be an internal/supply chain facing tool and not a consumer-facing label. This focus could be revisited in future years.
Eco Index definition and scope
Definition: The Eco Index is an outdoor industry environmental assessment tool containing:
Environmental guidelines
Environmental performance indicators
Environmental footprint metrics
Comparative scoring system (currently for indicators only)
Scope: The Eco Index will apply across outdoor industry product categories including apparel, equipment and footwear.
The Eco Index is based on a life cycle approach and integrates some key environmental impacts, as described in the Framework. To find out more go to the Eco Index website.
The Eco Index is in the process of becoming part of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) Index, to find out more about the SAC visit www.apparelcoalition.org
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