Ecolabel or UNE-ISO 16128? A buyer's guide to green claims

Two third-party endorsements keep appearing in professional cleaning procurement in Europe: the EU Ecolabel and UNE-ISO 16128. They are routinely quoted as if they measured the same thing, and they do not. One assesses environmental performance across a product's life cycle; the other classifies where the ingredients came from. A buyer who treats them as interchangeable ends up paying a green premium for a specification that does not deliver what the purchasing decision actually required.

This guide sets out what each scheme does and does not guarantee, where the two overlap, and how to write a specification that stops a supplier from answering a sustainability question with a label that has nothing to do with it. It is written for facility managers, cleaning contractors, hotel and healthcare purchasing teams, and distributors building private-label ranges.

Why the two are confused, and what it costs

The confusion is not accidental. Both schemes produce a number or a mark that can be printed on a pack, both appeal to the same instinct, and both are legitimate. The practical result is that a tender can specify "sustainable cleaning chemicals" and receive a proposal quoting a 98% natural-origin figure for a product with no life-cycle assessment at all, or an Ecolabel certificate for a formula whose cleaning performance per litre is so weak that consumption, packaging and transport triple.

Getting this wrong in either direction costs money. Over-specifying natural origin in a high-frequency application buys a formulation that under-performs and gets over-dosed by the operator, which is the opposite of the environmental outcome the specification was written to achieve. Over-specifying Ecolabel without checking performance per litre buys a concentrated product that is genuinely lighter per unit of work but may be unsuitable for the soil type on site, so the operator compensates with a second product and the packaging saving evaporates.

What the EU Ecolabel actually certifies

The EU Ecolabel is a Type I environmental label, awarded per product against criteria that cover the whole life cycle. The criteria are set at EU level, revised on a fixed cycle, and verified by an independent competent body before the mark can be used. That verification step is what separates it from a self-declared claim.

For cleaning products, meeting the criteria typically involves demonstrating:

• Biodegradability of the surfactant system under the relevant test methods.
• Caps on the content of substances that are hazardous to the aquatic environment, and exclusion of specific substance groups.
• Performance proven at the recommended dose, so that the environmental gain is not achieved by asking the user to use more product.
• Limits on packaging weight and on the use of certain materials, plus requirements on refill or concentrate formats where applicable.
• Restrictions on volatile organic compounds and on the total chemical load per unit of function.

The critical point for a buyer: the Ecolabel is a comparative judgement. It means the product is better than the market average on the criteria assessed. It does not mean the formula is natural, food-safe, free of petrochemical-derived surfactants, or harmless in an accidental exposure. A synthetic surfactant can be fully compliant and still be a synthetic surfactant. What Ecolabel limits is the load and the hazard profile, not the origin.

What UNE-ISO 16128 actually classifies

UNE-ISO 16128 is a standard, not a certification scheme. It provides the definitions and calculation rules for expressing how much of a formulation is of natural origin, how much is derived from natural sources, and how much is genuinely organic. It came out of the cosmetics sector, but its classification logic is used far beyond it, including in the marketing of natural-origin cleaning products.

Because there is no certifying authority attached, nothing guarantees the figure a supplier publishes. The standard tells you how to calculate and how to declare; it does not tell you whether the declaration is true, and it does not require third-party verification. That is the structural difference, and it matters more than any individual percentage.

UNE-ISO 16128 also says nothing about biodegradability, aquatic toxicity, performance at reduced dose, packaging, or transport. A product can be declared 95% natural-origin and still be supplied in non-recyclable packaging, dosed at a rate that makes the cost per clean uncompetitive, and contain a natural substance with a poor aquatic profile. Natural origin and low environmental impact are different properties, and only one of them is measured by this standard.

Side by side: what each one answers

The quickest way to keep them apart is to ask what question each scheme actually answers.

Read across any row and the pattern holds: the Ecolabel answers questions about consequences, UNE-ISO 16128 answers a question about provenance. Neither one substitutes for the other, and a pack that carries only one of them is only telling you half of the story a professional specification usually needs.

How to write a specification that cannot be answered with the wrong label

The failure mode in procurement is not picking the wrong scheme. It is writing a requirement vague enough that a supplier can respond with whichever scheme is easier to obtain. Four steps remove most of that room.

1. Separate the two requirements in the document. Put life-cycle performance on one line and ingredient origin on another, each with its own evidence requirement. A single line reading "sustainable formula" invites a single-line answer.
2. State the evidence, not the outcome. Ask for the Ecolabel licence number and the product's registered name, or for the natural-origin calculation and the declaration basis used. An evidence request cannot be answered with a marketing adjective.
3. Require the performance figure you will actually buy on. Ask for the recommended dose and the cost per litre of working solution, not per concentrate. This is the figure that decides consumption, and it is also the figure the Ecolabel criteria hinge on.
4. Fix the packaging format in the same document. Concentrate, refill, or closed-loop dispensing each change the environmental maths and the operator's workflow. Left open, they are decided by whoever supplies, and rarely in the buyer's favour.

Where natural origin genuinely earns its place

There are operational contexts where the natural-origin question is the right one to ask first, and it is worth being explicit about them because it is not a marketing point.

• Front-of-house and guest-facing areas in hotels, restaurants and wellness facilities, where odour and residue perception during service affects the guest experience and, in some cases, the review score.
• Food-contact and food-preparation environments, where the specification conversation is about residue and rinse behaviour, and an origin declaration supports the hazard documentation.
• Facilities with declared sustainability commitments, where the operator reports to a certification scheme of its own and needs ingredient-level data to complete it.
• Private-label and brand ranges aimed at a customer segment that reads the pack, where the declaration is part of the product positioning and must be defensible.

Where Ecolabel logic earns its place instead

In high-frequency, high-volume applications the life-cycle question dominates, and origin is secondary to whether the product does the job at a defensible dose.

• Large floor areas and high-traffic buildings (retail, airports, offices, industrial facilities), where consumption per square metre and the packaging volume that follows from it drive both cost and waste.
• Abrasive and heavy-duty cleaning in washrooms, kitchens and industrial areas, where a weak formulation gets over-dosed and destroys the environmental gain it was chosen for.
• Contract cleaning operations managing multiple sites, where a verified performance-at-dose figure is what makes consumption forecasting and dilution control possible.
• Centralised purchasing and tenders, where a third-party verified mark removes the need to audit each supplier's claims individually.

The combination that actually works

The two schemes are not in competition, and the most defensible specification uses both where each adds something. The Ecolabel requirement establishes that the product performs and is lighter across its life cycle, with independent verification behind the claim. A natural-origin declaration, calculated under UNE-ISO 16128, adds ingredient-level transparency on top of that.

What to avoid is the substitution, in either direction: a life-cycle mark presented as proof of natural ingredients, or a natural-origin percentage presented as proof of low environmental impact. Both are common in tender responses, and both are answered by asking for the evidence behind the specific claim being made.

What to ask your supplier, in writing

1. Ecolabel or other Type I licence number, with the registered product name it applies to.
2. Recommended dose and the resulting cost per litre of working solution, for the soil type on site.
3. Natural-origin percentage with the calculation basis under UNE-ISO 16128, and whether it is independently verified.
4. Safety data sheet and technical data sheet, with hazard and aquatic-toxicity classifications stated.
5. Packaging format, refill availability, and the packaging weight per litre of concentrate.
6. Concentration ratio and the dilution equipment required, so that dilution control is possible on site.

Frequently asked questions

Does a product with the Ecolabel contain no synthetic ingredients?
No. The Ecolabel limits hazard and load across the life cycle. It does not require ingredients to be of natural origin, so a certified formula can be built on synthetic surfactants that meet the biodegradability and toxicity criteria.

Is a high natural-origin percentage a guarantee of lower environmental impact?
No. UNE-ISO 16128 classifies origin only. A formula can be almost entirely natural-origin and still be supplied in non-recyclable packaging, dosed inefficiently, or contain a natural substance with a poor aquatic profile.

Which one should a tender specify first?
Start with the life-cycle requirement and the performance-at-dose figure, because those decide consumption and waste. Add the ingredient-origin requirement on a separate line where the application or the facility's own reporting needs it.

Can a supplier claim UNE-ISO 16128 compliance without an audit?
Yes. It is a self-declared standard. If the figure matters to your decision, ask for the calculation basis and for independent verification; otherwise treat it as a supplier claim, not a verified fact.

Do natural-origin cleaning products work as well as conventional ones?
Many do, at the right dose and on the right soil type, which is why the dose and the cost per litre of working solution belong in the specification alongside the origin figure. Performance is a separate question from origin.

Choosing between them in practice

If your priority is measurable environmental performance with independent verification, lead with the Ecolabel and hold the supplier to the dose and the cost per litre. If your priority is ingredient transparency for a customer-facing or reporting-driven requirement, ask for the UNE-ISO 16128 calculation and the basis behind it. If both matter, which is the usual case for professional operations, write them as two separate requirements with two separate pieces of evidence, and you remove the loophole that lets a label for one question be offered as the answer to the other.

You can browse the ecological range as a starting point for either route, or ask us directly and we will tell you which of the two specifications a given product actually meets.

BROWSE THE ECOLOGICAL RANGE

Worked examples from the range, with their certificates and doses: ECO-PQ concentrated degreaser with the Ecolabel and ECO-PQ ecological multipurpose cleaner. For general formulations outside the eco range, see general cleaners and disinfectants; the wider consumables catalogue is at janitorial supplies. Ordering, delivery and payment terms: how to place an order, delivery policies and secure payment. For a specification review of your own product list, write to [email protected].