The "Made Green in Italy" National Scheme

The voluntary national Scheme for the assessment and communication of the environmental footprint of products, called "Made Green in Italy" (MGI), is established by art. 21, paragraph 1 of Italian Law no. 221/2015.

The Scheme is managed by the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security and based on the PEF - Product Environmental Footprint method, as defined by the European Commission in Recommendation 2013/179/EU and subsequent technical documents. With the ministerial Decree n. 56/2018, the regulation implementing “Made Green in Italy” came into force, establishing the operating procedures.

The goal of "Made Green in Italy" is to strengthen in the markets the Italian products with good/excellent environmental performance, guaranteed by a scientifically robust system. Thanks to its logo it also aims to make products recognizable for consumers, so to encourage more informed choices. The quantification of the environmental performance of a product is based on a complete PEF study, verified by an independent third-party certification body. The result is a three performance classes:

• class A – products with better performance than the benchmark;
• class B - products with the same or close performance to the benchmark;
• class C - products with worse performance than the benchmark.

The products that can obtain “Made Green in Italy” logo are those with environmental performance equal to or higher than the reference benchmark (class A and class B products). Class B products can obtain the use of the logo but must foresee an improvement plan to be implemented within the three-year validity of the license to use.

The relevant potential of the Scheme, in terms of supporting the competitive abilities of the Italian companies in a "green" key, lies in the fact that it represents an absolute novelty in the scenario of the environmental certifications available to corporate marketing strategies. In fact:

• It is the only certification capable of combining the environmental performance of products, throughout their value chain, with the "Made in Italy", connected to the excellence of the national production system.
• It is the first and only certification adopted by a public institution utilizing the European PEF methodology and, in addition, more ambitious national requirements about environmental quality, able to distinguish the Italian production, have been developed.
• It is the only certification that mixes and integrates requirements for companies about the communication of environmental footprint of products to their customers and consumers (typical of Type 3 labels, regulated by ISO 14025) with requirements that allow access to the Scheme only to excellent products, capable of exceeding performance thresholds and, in particular, of being better than the average representative product of their category (typical of Type 1 labels, regulated by ISO 14024).
• Significant opportunities are therefore open for national producers who intend to make use of this new tool, between environmental policy and corporate marketing.

All products (goods and services), which according to existing laws (EU regulation 952/2013) originate in Italy, can apply to obtain the use of MGI logo. This means that a product that is not 100% “Made in Italy” and involves other countries in its processing, can still participate to the scheme, if the last substantial transformation, economically justified, takes place in Italy.
 

The first step is the existence of Product Category Rules (PCR), i.e. documents containing methodological indications that define mandatory and optional rules and requirements necessary for conducting studies relating to the environmental footprint for a specific product category.

Step One -  PCR proposal and approval

Private or public organizations can make proposal for a PCR. They are expected to be made up of at least three companies (of which at least one small and medium-sized enterprise according to the definition provided by the decree of the Minister of Productive Activities of 18 April 2005) representing the majority share of the sector of the specific product category for which they propose the preparation of the PCR. Majority share means over 50% of the turnover referring to the calendar year preceding the RCP proposal. Since the Scheme follows the PEF methodology, if there is a PEFCR - Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules at European level, it must be acknowledged and integrated in the PCR under development with the additional mandatory and optional requirements. Otherwise, a new PCR is drawn up at national level.

Step Two - Application for membership

Once the process and approval of a PCR for a specific sector has been completed, the manufacturing companies can participate to the Scheme, complete a PEF study and, in the light of the required documentation, can obtain the use of the "Made Green in Italy" logo.