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Mehmet Emin Birpınar, Ülkü Yetişet, et al.,

they can serve the Green Deal goals, current application status of the main
eco-label systems and finally, the Environmental Labeling applications in our
country.

1. Eco-Labels and Their Effects on Sustainable Production and Consumption

The increase in production all over the world and the accompanying rise
in consumption enhance the pressure on the environment and the natural
environment is adversely affected by these developments. As long as the
world’s economies grow at their current pace and irresponsible consumption
and production patterns are kept the same, the natural environment is
expected to worsen. In order to prevent this deterioration and to protect
the natural resources, it is considered as a highly important issue to pay
attention, with environmental concerns, to the product quality starting from
the design process and to ensure that the products cause less environmental
impact through their life cycles. One of the main challenges here is the
development of a system that trains consumers about the effects of products
on the natural environment throughout their entire life cycle and at the same
time informs them about their environmental advantages. At this point,
eco-labeling systems, which are considered as one of the basic consumer
training tools for directing consumers to environment-friendly products and
services, are seen as a solution. Eco-labels are meant to provide a competitive
advantage for manufacturers, on the other hand, they emerge as a system for
consumers to help them choose products that cause less ecological damage
throughout their entire life cycle. In this scope, eco-labeling is used as a kind
of environmental policy tool that plays an important role in achieving both
sustainable production and sustainable consumption goals. Wojnarowska et
al. (2021) pointed out that increasing the production, the use of environment-
friendly products, and thus reducing the adverse environmental impacts can
be achieved by consumers realizing the benefits of purchasing environment-
friendly products. In addition, it is stated that the main obstacle preventing
the correct and adequate use of eco-labels is the limited ecological awareness
of consumers and producers. In recent years, it is observed that public
administrations have started to use eco-label systems as public policy tools
and are trying to assess eco-label systems as tools that provide support in line
with the UN sustainable development goals (Beyazıt, 2020). It is foreseen that
it will contribute to increasing the ecological awareness of manufacturers and
consumers by adopting this trend and implementing related practices.
Eco-labeling processes of products and services, and especially third-
party-certified eco-labels are the systems that encourage the purchase of
more sustainable products and services and make it easier for consumers to
make conscious purchasing decisions. Thanks to these systems, it is possible

70 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate