The Ecomark Rules, 2024, apply to seventeen major categories of consumer goods, ranging from soaps and paper to textiles and electronics, under a voluntary certification framework administered by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). From a legal and commercial standpoint, the Ecomark acts as a certification mark under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, distinguishing goods for verified environmental performance rather than origin. Against this structured backdrop unfolds the narrative of law and irony that follows—the attempt to clothe morality in regulatory fabric.
For the fashion industry, five of the seventeen product categories carry particular weight: textiles, leather, plastics, cosmetics, and packaging materials. Together, they frame the legal fabric of fashion – covering everything from fibres and fabrics to the creams and cartons that sustain its retail aura. It is here that the Ecomark finds its most visible runway, determining whether sustainability on the label translates into responsibility in production.
Readers expecting a modest regulatory update may find instead that the law has slipped into something more elaborate. The Ecomark Rules, 2024, glide through India’s statute book like couture: stitched in legalese, hemmed in sub-clauses, and accessorised with committees. What began in 1991 as an earthen token of ecological virtue has returned lacquered in digital sheen and bureaucratic embroidery.
The Second Coming of the Pot
The Ecomark Rules, 2024, mark the formal reintroduction of India’s environmental labelling system. This statutory grounding situates the Ecomark within the country’s broader environmental regulatory framework and underscores its transformation from a symbolic scheme to a structured, rule-based certification process.
In its reincarnation, Ecomark has traded its idealism for architecture. The CPCB, assisted by the BIS, now dictates who may claim to be green. Seventeen product categories – from soaps and detergents to textiles and electronics – are eligible for certification under the First Schedule. Each must first possess a BIS licence or a Quality Control Order (QCO) certificate and then comply with the general and product-specific environmental criteria under Rule 4 – covering reduced emissions, recyclability, resource efficiency, and avoidance of toxic materials. The CPCB may evaluate, inspect, and test samples through accredited laboratories before granting certification. The Ecomark, once conferred, is valid for three years, renewable upon annual compliance reporting.
On paper, it is elegant – an administrative couture piece in sustainable shades. Yet beneath its fine tailoring runs an older thread: who controls the certification economy? When access to moral legitimacy depends on the price of verification, virtue becomes a subscription service. In that sense, regulatory capture is not merely a risk; it is the fabric itself.
Greenwashing and the Price of Proof
For fashion, this is the battlefield. Apparel and accessory brands trade heavily on adjectives – sustainable, vegan, eco-conscious – that now acquire statutory meaning under the Ecomark Rules. India’s fashion houses, luxury labels, and direct-to-consumer brands will find their sustainability claims newly vulnerable to legal scrutiny. A misleading hangtag or website blurb could invite consumer complaints, CCPA action, or reputational collapse. Compliance officers will replace copywriters as the custodians of style’s conscience.
India’s retail and fashion markets overflow with eco, vegan, organic, and sustainable labels untethered to law. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, under Sections 2(28) and 2(47), already prohibits misleading advertisements and unfair trade practices. But until now, it lacked a definitive benchmark in the realm of eco labelling. With the Ecomark Rules, any environmental claim must now be measurable against a government-backed standard. This transforms moral assertion into legal liability.
The new regime also dovetails with the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)’s guidelines against greenwashing, fortifying consumer law with procedural teeth. When proof becomes purchasable, the label ceases to be armour; it becomes a leash.
The International Weave
For the global fashion trade, this framework sets the stage for a cross-border compliance economy. Indian textiles and leather exports – often flagged for environmental risk – can now parade Ecomark alongside GOTS or OEKO-TEX to access premium markets. Yet this alignment also sharpens inequality: conglomerates can afford multiple certifications and glossy sustainability reports, while craft clusters and small ateliers struggle to pay the entry fee for credibility.
In comparing the new rules with the original 1991 Ecomark scheme, the differences are striking. The earlier version was a fragile framework of moral aspiration – light on enforcement and silent on lifecycle impact. The 2024 Rules, by contrast, weave modern environmental policy into the regulatory fabric, expressly introducing ideas such as the circular economy, resource efficiency, and life-cycle analysis. This evolution reflects India’s shift from symbolic sustainability to systemic accountability, turning what was once a voluntary badge of honour into a potential blueprint for environmental governance.
Rule 8 introduces a provision for mutual recognition of international eco-labels, such as GOTS, OEKO-TEX, and the EU Ecolabel, allowing Indian producers smoother access to foreign markets under trade regimes like the EU Green Claims Directive and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). It is a diplomatic stitch in global sustainability, but one that could unravel domestically. Large corporations can afford the luxury of multi-certification; artisans and MSMEs cannot. What was conceived as a democratic eco-label may end up reinforcing commercial hierarchies – the globalisation of virtue at a local cost.
The Philosophy of Revival
To its credit, the 2024 Rules replace the defunct 1991 scheme with a system attuned to contemporary realities. They explicitly align with India’s Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) initiative, promote circular economy principles, and integrate life-cycle analysis and resource efficiency into law. Yet they also inherit the spirit of bureaucratic idealism that has long defined Indian policymaking: moral ambition folded into administrative excess.
The Ecomark’s philosophy is no longer just about ecology – it is about legibility. The State now seeks not only to encourage virtue but to document it. Sustainability, once a matter of ethics, is becoming a matter of evidence. Even virtue, it seems, must pass through a portal.
Implications for Law and Business
For intellectual property, the Ecomark introduces new terrain. Classified as a certification mark under the Trade Marks Act, 1999, it distinguishes goods certified for environmental performance rather than commercial origin. Unlike trade marks, which identify ownership, certification marks verify conformity. The Ecomark thus becomes both a compliance credential and a commercial asset.
For businesses, this means rethinking product design and supply chain management to embed sustainability from conception to disposal. Certification will influence mergers, acquisitions, and due diligence, as Ecomark credentials may now be viewed as indicators of good governance.
The Seam Between Law and Fashion
The Ecomark’s revival arrives at an odd intersection: where the language of couture meets the grammar of compliance. For the fashion industry, long sustained by narrative, emotion, and texture, the new order demands something colder – verification. Yet perhaps this is what modern luxury requires: truth that can be audited, ethics that can be stamped.
If the 1991 Ecomark was India’s attempt to moralise consumption, the 2024 revival seeks to institutionalise it. It turns the hangtag into a contract, the label into a legal statement. Whether this system uplifts or ensnares the industry will depend on who controls its definitions of virtue: the artisan or the algorithm, the craftsman or the committee.
In the end, fashion’s fabric is not only cloth but confidence – and Ecomark, in all its bureaucratic velvet, reminds us that even conscience now comes with certification.
References
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) (2024) Eco‑Mark Scheme Information Portal. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. Available at: https://cpcb.nic.in (Accessed: 7 October 2025).
Government of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (2024) Notification: Ecomark Rules, 2024 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Press Information Bureau, 26 September. Available at: https://pib.gov.in (Accessed: 7 October 2025).
Indian Chemical Regulation (2024) New Ecomark Rules Published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to Promote Eco‑Friendly Products and Sustainable Living. Available at: https://indianchemicalregulation.com (Accessed: 7 October 2025).
