On October 20 Kiev hosted the Annual General Meeting of the international association - the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN).

Currently GEN comprises 27 systems (regional, national, and international) of third-party environmental performance recognition, certification, and labelling organisations that operate in accordance with the requirements of the international standard ISO 14024 – as well as organizations that support the GEN mission. GEN members operate in 60 countries.

GEN member standards promote the manufacture of greener products, and members seek ways to harmonize requirements across their programs to better enable global market access and reduce the industry impact on the environment. Ecolabelled products contribute addressing waste issues, for instance, and can help towards prevention of climate change.

At the meeting, Members of the Association summed up the year; the work done to promote the eco-labeling, certification, environmental education and environmental protection.

The meeting was chaired by Board member Eva Eiderstrom of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation; Bjorn-Erik Lonn (Norway), Chair of the Board of Directors of GEN, Senior Advisor of Nordic Ecolabelling - The Swan presented GEN’s annual progress report among other inputs.

This year the meeting was hosted by the All-Ukraine NGO "Living Planet", a member of GEN since 2004.

The GEN meeting was held at the time of the International forum for sustainable business development GREEN MIND 2016, which took place on 19-20 October. The members of GEN participated in the forum with speeches and presentations in the discussions on economic incentives, innovation, investment and support programs for the modernization of production, development of a model of sustainable production and consumption, the environmental aspects to enhance the export potential.

GEN members approved the applications of two new members Google as an Affiliate member, and the International Academy of Ecology, which represents the ecolabelling program in Kazakhstan, as an Associate member.

On the final day of the meeting were held trainings for the development of global activity, communication and innovation to reduce the anthropogenic impact on the biosphere and increase trust to ecolabelling according to ISO 14024. The next annual meeting will be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2017.