Life MAgis

A consumer buys a product based on price and quality, but in recent years a new trend emerging: evaluating and comparing products according to their environmental impact.

This trend is confirmed by some data:

55% of consumers look for environmental information about food products in the purchasing phase and 49% non-food products. (source: LIFE MAGIS - GREEN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: INSIGHTS FROM SURVEY AND EXPERIMENTS - 2020)

Thanks to recent studies we know that if a consumer has the right environmental information, he is willing to pay more. However, only 35% trust eco-labels. (source: Project CHOICE - CONAI, Sant'Anna + LIFE MAGIS - GREEN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: INSIGHTS FROM SURVEY AND EXPERIMENTS - 2020)

However, the lack of international standards leads to exponential growth of environmental labels: today there are more than 450 labels in the world.
The excess of labels makes sustainable products unrecognizable and confuses consumers, so they don’t have confidence market: only 43% of them have full or enough confidence in private companies as a source of environmental information. (source: Progetto SCELTA - CONAI, Sant'Anna - 2020)

The European Commission wants to solve the problem, so has introduced a methodology to measure environmental performance throughout the entire product life cycle: the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).

PEF takes into account 16 different types of impacts that can involve land, water, air and human health. The goal is to allow companies to quantify in a unique and standardized way the environmental footprint of products, in order to communicate to consumers their environmental performance, favoring the comparison of products and a conscious choice of purchase.
In this way companies can use a secure method to obtain real and communicable data, which the consumer can understand and therefore believe credible.
The PEF is based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): the Life Cycle Assessment takes into account all the phases that make up the life cycle of a product to highlight what the most significant impacts derive from.
The PEF will encourage more and more companies to design their products taking into account the environmental footprint. At the same time, the PEF methodology makes it easier for companies to compare with competitors.
Therefore, companies that use PEF can achieve better environmental performance and, at the same time, strengthen their competitiveness, creating a virtuous circle that will be good for the health of the planet.

DIAP Life MAgis