Principles
The Charter is based on the following principles:
Promoting sustainability
It supports and builds on the main aims of European societal and environmental regulatory policies by creating a single unified pro-active strategy promoting sustainability and covering all three pillars: economic, social and environmental.
Voluntary initiative
It demonstrates the industry's continuing willingness to act voluntarily in the interests of society and the environment by building on the success of past initiatives.
Continual improvement
It stimulates continual improvement over time by making sustainability a way of thinking in company management systems throughout the EU industry.
Life-cycle approach
It encourages companies to move towards sustainable product design and production by applying a life-cycle approach based on ISO and similar standards.
Transparency
The Charter addresses consumers and other stakeholders, calls for the provision of information via independent verification authorities and published key performance indicators.
Dialogue
The Industry wants to implement the Charter in a spirit of open dialogue with all interested bodies, both at EU and national levels. The initiative is seen as an evolving one, which will progress with time and feedback.
Best use b safe use
It promotes safety & eco-efficiency in the end-use of products whilst providing more detailed consumer and user information and guidance on consumption.
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Best practice sharing
It gives individual companies, large, medium and small-sized, equal access to industry's expertise on improving eco-efficiency and overall performance, and allows benchmarking against the industry average.
Innovation and competition
It enshrines the legitimate right of companies to innovate and compete in free market conditions.