SWITCH-Asia

The Challenge

Mongolia has a strong history of locally produced goods. But the products have in average poor quality; the manufacturing process often has an inefficient use of resources and little pollution prevention. The constraints for the manufacturers are the lack of experience on improving, manufacturing and marketing their products in line with sustainable product standards, being unfamiliar with the upcoming green label developments in Mongolia. Fast growing of SMEs and manufacturing sectors in Mongolia requires an sustainability approach not only for SMEs but also for policymaking. The manufacturing sectors in terms of resource use and pollution prevention is very often inefficient. Consumers are not aware of green choices. Eco labelling was initiated earlier, but did not succeeded due to inconvenient procedure, lack of awareness and involvement of stakeholders.

The Objectives

This project aims to encourage green products development and eco-labelling for locally produced products in Mongolia in order to reduce negative environmental impacts. It aims to strengthen the Mongolian certification standards and procedures and provide business support network on development and promotion of sustainable products.

The Way Forward

• 160 companies (222 people), or two times the targeted participants, attended the information and expert training seminars;
• 50 eligible green product applications with 80 companies were selected for further support and for in-depth training;
• Successful Green Products Fairs were organised together with the ‘Organic Mongolia’ programme with over 10-thousand visitors and registered sales of 30 thousand US-dollars;
• 17 baseline assessments and 6 business plans have been received by the MNCCI. 14 more business development plans were reported to have been received by the Capitron Bank;
• A new version of the Mongolian Eco-label standard was drafted, followed by its translation for the international experts’ review.