Good Environmental Choice Australia Limited

Good Environmental Choice Australia Limited

PO Box 4140, Weston ACT 2611 Australia / p: 02 6287 3100 / f: 02 6287 3800 / e: mamagement@geca.org.au / abn: 27 118 766 153

28 June 2010

Dear GECA Members and Industry Colleagues,

As we enter a new financial year, I am writing to let you know what GECA is doing to shape our long term future with our members and reflect on our achievements over the past year.

Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) is an organisation founded on best practice. Our business goal for 2010/2011 is to have a broader and more balanced representation from GECA certified product manufacturers and service providers in the marketplace.

GECA is the pioneer of eco-labelling in Australia. There have been significant changes over the last eight years but our core philosophy has guided GECA to where it is today. Our ultimate focus has always been on delivering effective ecolabelling which helps reduce the environmental impact of products and services purchased by Australians.

GECA is member-based, independent, not for profit organisation funded by its licensing fees. Every dollar earned by the program is reinvested in the program.
There are no shareholders who will personally benefit from GECA ecolabeling program.

In this context we welcome competition, scrutiny and review.

As reported in our November 2009 newsletter we have established the new governance structure that was recommended by the McKinsey and Co review.

What we have changed:
• We have a new board structure which includes four committees - Finance and Risk;
Governance, Nominations and Ethics; Standards Advisory Committee and Marketing and
Membership Advisory Committee.
• We have ensured there is no Board or Committee representation by parties with actual or
potential conflicts of interest in governance or shareholding.
• We have appointed a new CEO committed to leading our reform program.
• We have a new Heads of Agreement between GECA and Environmental Assurance (G.E.C.S.
trading as) to bring about a complete separation of powers between standard setter and auditor.
• We currently operate with Environmental Assurance as a third party auditor of the GECA
ecolabel program and have two new auditors (possibly more) positioning to increase our
auditing capacity in 2011.
• We have increased our membership base to enable GECA to harness the interest of a wide range of groups who wish to promote eco-labelling. We now have more than 260 members, 230 of whom are licensees. This is a 44% increase on 2008/09 figures.
• We are poised to release four new standards: Furniture and Fittings, Carpets, Panel Boards and Floor Coverings and have modified another.
• We will undertake an assessment of our other 39 standards in the coming year and consider the introduction of new standards.

Expanding Audit Capability

I am pleased to confirm that we have already called for expressions of interest from other audit organizations. They are currently preparing for accreditation to audit to our Scheme Rules and Standards in line with our intention to have the auditing process become fully competitive during this coming financial year.

This is good news for more than 230 licensees and others interested in securing GECA certification.They will soon be able to choose their auditor from a list of JAS/ANZ approved auditors. For us it means we can deliver transparency and choice to licensees and better respond to the increasing demand for independently audited eco-labelling Australia-wide.

Recognition by Green Building Council of Australia

We are currently in the final stages of renewed recognition by the Green Building Council of Australia of GECA and five of its Standards (as listed above). As you probably know, the GBCA have this year opened up their accreditation process to other organizations with different audit models so that there is a range of options for ecolabelling in the marketplace.

GECA is an experienced Ecolabelling programme tested on over 1600 product lines in the Australian marketplace. In the context of growing competition, we are committed to the growth of the environmental consumer market in Australia and delivering a competitive advantage to our licensees
- all of whom are organisations who create environmentally preferable products.
GECA is still the only Australian member of the Global Eco-labelling Network.

We are confident that this past year’s initiatives will strengthen the organisation’s successful delivery of credible eco-labelling in the future and continue to raise Australian consumer and manufacturer awareness of environmental sustainability generally.

Sincerely,

Jack Josephsen
Chairman
Good Environmental Choice Australia

In: Letter from Chairman of Good Environmental Choice AustraliaVendredi 2 juillet 2010 14h47 for Mr Babacar NDIAYE, Consultant, International Civil Society; CP 13522, BP 37171 Dakar / Senegal