Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards scheme supply chain scoping and compliance report
Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2010
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Executive summary
The Department commissioned this report on the supply chains for products affected by the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (WELS) scheme. The products of interest were:
- showers
- dishwashers
- clothes washing machines
- lavatory equipment
- urinal equipment
- tap equipment
- flow controllers.
The study’s objectives included obtaining a better understanding of how and by whom WELS regulated products are supplied within Australia through all stages from manufacture to end users. This involved identifying the product sources, different stages of supply and the numbers and types of suppliers involved, and establishing the volume and percentage of the different types of WELS products within the supply chain stages.
The study collected and collated, from an appropriate selection of stakeholders from each supply chain category, their views regarding the operation of the WELS scheme; their capacity, ability and willingness to comply, and their views on registration and compliance issues, gaps, labelling requirements, and offence provisions.
The study found supply chain information about clothes washing machines and dishwashers to be more readily available and reliable than information about plumbing products covered by the scheme.
If better information is desired by industry or the department, the study recommended that there might be a role for the department to work with the plumbing industry to form an affiliated approach to data collection, in order to establish methods for obtaining comprehensive data on WELS product markets in the future.
Industry stakeholders identified enforcement as necessary to ensure fair treatment of organisations at each stage of the supply chain, particularly to guard against cheaper non-compliant products. Providing information on WELS processes and raising buyers’ awareness were the two main ways in which stakeholders said compliance could be improved.
WELS labels were described as straightforward and easy to understand.
Background
The results are based on interviews with stakeholder organisations and firms in the supply chains for these products, customs data for imports and exports and secondary sources of data.
Thirty-two interviews were conducted with supply chain participants spread across the product and supply chain stages.
The participants ranged in size from small niche players to very large corporations which managed a number of high volume brands. The large players could be more than one hundred times the size of the small players.
Additional data from a variety of sources on imports showed that while products were sourced from a range of countries, China tended to dominate imports in terms of product volumes.
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