This project has completed the following tasks in accordance with the “Operational Guidelines for the Management of Environmental Protection Products” promulgated by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA)of the Executive Yuan: Regarding product sampling and testing, this year’s project considered factors including ratio of environmental protection products (EPPs), feasibility of sampling and testing and environmental benefits, and completed the sampling and testing of 273 EPPs and 86 non-EPPs. The non-compliance rates for the tested EPPs and non-EPPs are 12.45% and 30.23% respectively. In order to supplement the deficiencies resulted from conducting product sampling and testing to widely distributed retailer sites, onsite audit of manufacturing sites were conducted for 72 products from 13 manufacturers, as well as on-site verifications of 58 products at the retailer sites. This project also conducted environmental protection products’ follow-up surveillance and management activities, following the request of the EPA and the Green Consumption and Environmental Protection Product Review Committee. Regarding the following-up of non-compliance manufacturers, 36 non-complying products have been detected and their manufacturers forwarded to competent authorities for penalizing proceeding, with the recertification and retesting process of these products to be arranged later. Of these products, 30 paint products have been found to be exceeding the substance concentration limits, which warrant a review of the existing product criteria. Moreover, following the requirement of EPA’s Environmental Hormones Management Project, this project also presented environmental hormone test results for related products, demonstrating that the Green Mark Program is indeed helpful in providing consumers with safer and healthier products. In addition, the project assisted the local county and city governments in conducting the audits of green stores, and implemented education and training in tracking green stores’ sales of Green Mark Products. Responsible officials from 15 local governments were also interviewed to compile the current status of green store audits. Finally, based on the results of the above tasks, this project proposed the future direction on conducting follow-up verification of environmental protection products; as well as the screening criteria, and verification methods, issues, and frequency for conducting future annual verification. The issues related to the current Green Mark product criteria and product verification were also studied in order to achieve continuous improvement of the Green Mark Program.

Ecolabelling, Sampling Test of Product, Factory Inspection, Store Inspection