Questionnaire for workshop participants - EU Ecolabel Marketing for ...

4.7.3 Completed activities 2007 until current report
� The new marketing strategy and product group focus was discussed with CB.
� Basic market and contact research was made for the new product groups
(including tissue paper, soaps and shampoos as well as other cleaning products).
Also, previous contact lists of producers of indoor paints and varnishes as well as
retail companies were updated.
� Available informational materials have been updated and adapted to Hungarian
conditions. To gather more convincing information for the producers, on a Warsaw
meeting in April 2007, the Polish CB was requested to provide some details on the
success story of OKTIMA, a Polish company with 7 eco-labelled products.
� Acquisition started in August but it was suspended between 26 August and 19
September. Altogether, 59 companies have been contacted, 3 on-site visits paid.
The break-down of the companies is as follows:
21 tissue paper producers,
28 cleaning product producers
7 indoor paints producers
1 lubricating oil producer and
2 retail companies
Unfortunately, no new acquisition has been achieved but 1 tissue paper company has
decided to apply. (The decision was made on 28 November, just before the end of the
project. In addition, 8 companies (2 tissue paper producers, 3 cleaning product
producers, and 2 indoor painting producer and 1 lubricant producer) showed interest
but the acquisition process is in progress, none of them have decided on applying for the
EU ecolabel yet. Acquisition should be continued with 18 additional companies (status:
“important to go on, interest so far not assessable”), 31 companies are definitely not
interested on the short-term.
As a new development, however, 8 of these companies emphasized that on longer term,
next year or in future product development they would consider eco-label criteria and
would come out with suitable products. These companies were glad to receive
information on the ecolabel and thanked for it. The others have been either closed down
or suspended the production of related products, 2 of them not eligible. Others, similarly
to companies approached last year, do not see the value of the ecolabel or find it too
expensive. In the case of the lubricant producer, the company needs the laboratory test
results of the additives they use for these products from the Swiss producer of the
additives. Commissioning the laboratory tests by themselves would be too expensive
therefore they try to obtain the test results from the supplier. They would also like to
have some financial incentives for ecolabelled products though they think that the
ecolabel would promote their export.
In 2007, 2 retail companies have been contacted in order to convince them to obtain
eco-label for their own brand products. One of them (TESCO Hungary) is still considering,
the other (CBA) said that their own brand hand dishwashing detergent and some tissue
products do not represent such a volume that it would be worth to apply for the label.
109