The main tasks of this project include conducting environmental protection product follow-up surveillance activities, managing post-certification related activities of environmental protection product licensees, and promoting follow-up surveillance activities of certified environmental protection products. The “2017 Plan for Conducting Surveillance of Environmental Protection Products” has been completed and used for verification of project goals; while the verification operations have been conducted in accordance with the “Standard Operating Procedure for the Conduct of Surveillance on Environmental Protection Products”. In addition, the "Procedure for Handling Misuses of Green Mark by the Environmental Protection Products" has been revised and adopted to serve as the basis for handling the misuses of Green Mark by the manufacturers or service providers not certified to use Green Mark on their products or services; the “Guidelines for the Promotion of Environmental Protection Products” has also been revised. A systematic sampling and verification mechanism has been established for this project, which can be used for conducting follow-up surveillance activities, and allowing for the effective tracking of corrective actions involving non-complying products or illegal uses of Green Mark logo. Regarding the implementation of follow-up surveillance activities, this year, 433 certified products from 209 licensees were sampled and tested, and non-compliances were found on 18 products from 11 Green Mark licensees which have been subjected to the corrective actions as stipulated in the Guidelines for the Promotion of Environmental Protection Products. During 51 site visits/audits (including 2 online vendors), 404 products were audited and their proper uses of the Green Mark logo on certified products verified. In addition, 106 products from 7 licensees involving misuses of Green Mark logo were processed, with 6 products from 2 licenses subjected to termination of logo usage or legal actions. On the promotion of environmental protection products, two informational seminars were held in Taipei and Kaohsiung respectively, in order to improve the awareness and willingness of product manufacturers and providers in applying for Green Mark logo usage, improve the quality of certified products, and reduce the incidents of potentially misusing the Green Mark logo. Regarding the implementation commendations for the next year, it is recommended that for non-compliance issues discovered in the past years, if non-conforming licensees are found to be in conformance this year, these licensees should be eligible for processing under the routine SOP for Follow-up Surveillance of Environmental Protection Products. Also, it is recommended that the following requirements be considered as priority items for verification next year, as they are found to be non-conforming this year: lead content in plastic parts of original toner cartridges, portable projectors, air conditioners and electric fans; energy efficiency of drinking water fountains and dispensers; azo dyes in original toner cartridges and recycled (yellow) toner cartridges; phthalates in textiles with recycled content; and thermal conductivity of building insulation materials. Non-compliances were first found for plastic parts of many non-conforming products mainly due to their uses of recycled materials; while non-compliances for lead content in these plastic parts occurred as the lead content requirements in these categories were not revised as with other similar product categories. It is recommended that the consistency of legal content limits for the same regulated items among different product categories be reviewed periodically to ensure proper consistency. Regarding recommendations for future work of the project, it is recommended that future informational seminars should have contents covering the rights and obligations of the licensees, post-certification management of suppliers and products, revision of product registration, follow-up surveillance and corrective actions, as well as discussion of relevant case studies. Recommendations for the project’s mid-term and long-term work involve two parts, assignment of project work, and funding for testing and inspection. It is recommended that the product criteria development work and follow-up surveillance activities be integrated, so that results for post-certification inspection and testing activities and responses from involved licensees can be reflected in time. At present, a great portion of the project funds is being spent on purchasing sample products and conducting testing of sampled products, which created an uneven use of project funds and financial pressure on conducting other project activities. Therefore, it is recommended that the project funding be increased so that product sampling and testing can be conducted properly. Moreover, in order to achieve the objectivity and fairness of certified product sampling and testing, it is recommended that the sampled products be sent to respective accreditated laboratories in accordance with the specific test items and tests.

Green Mark, Tracking, Audit