In 1989, the Nordic Council of Ministers decided to introduce a common, official eco-label in the Nordic region to help consumers choose environmentally friendly products. The participating countries include Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland, which formed a Nordic cooperation group to jointly supervise and develop an independent and fair logo system, the first transnational environmental label system in the world. The swan was chosen as the symbol of the Nordic eco-label, which is also a variant of the logo of the Nordic Council of Ministers.