Eco's Bad Rap: why eco-labels demotivate and environmental webpages fail to result in consumer green-purchasing

This is the third in a series of posts exploring the failure of sustainability (as rallying cry, policy goal or process) to effectively motivate proenvironmental behavior. The first post Sustainability's No Akaba  (May 1, 2016)  indicated that the sustainability ethic/frame has failed to affect behavior in both developed and emerging markets. To summarize recent research into consumer green behavior: 1) The good green-intentions of most consumers rarely result in green purchasing or behaviors; 2) More information disseminated on environmental issues does not correlate with more proenvironmental behavior; 3) Consumers distrust company sustainability claims, both at their website and in other promotional material and labels. In sum, sustainable development is oxymoronic, and sustainability as a concept is vague;  it fails as a frame/goal/ethic to trump the usual concerns of lack of credibility, inconvenience, old habits, capitalistic/individualistic values,scarcity of time, resources perceived to be scarce or fleeting, and other needs and desires that dominate consumers' decision-making  moments.

The second post What's Good about Gallo?   (May 6, 2016)  used Gallo wine as an example of a winery that reframed sustainability as a family value rather than an economic value, with considerable success both in domestic and emerging markets; Gallo is the world's largest producer of red wine, China, the world's largest emerging market, is also the world's largest consumer of red wine, much imported from Gallo Wines.  The Good About Gallo post referred to one of the more optimistic research studies into the motivational gap between intention and actual purchases:  the BBMG study,which divided consumers into four segments. The one called Aspirationals, about  one-third of consumers globally, are defined by their love of shopping (78%), desire for responsible consumption, willingness to seek out information on the Internet, distrust of producer claims, and most importantly, a desire to belong to a group of peers or better, are identified as the group most likely to become green consumers, referred to as the new persuadables. Most located are located in China, which also happens to be the world's largest consumer of red wine.

Today's post dismisses--under present marketing/communication conditions--eco-labeling as well as company website pages detailing environmental practices as practical solutions to increase proenvironmental consumer behavior and effectively address problems associated with climate change and runaway-consumption and production. The next post will look at possible solutions beginning with engaging specific communities with leadership qualities, removing obstacles to green behavior, supporting and reinforcing such behavior, and promoting the leadership-followership model of consumers. As usual, the wine industry is used as our focal case in point. 

 

Underlying the  above plethora of labels is a lack of universally accepted and well-understood eco-labeling standard, which has led to confusion and distrust  for consumers as well as producers.

 Distinguishing among labels, profiles, certifications, and green-wash

The prefix "eco-"  attached to products and services carries with it both positive and negative associations,  but  "eco-" seems unlikely to be replaced with anything else that so compactly refers to something ecologically beneficial. Product labels might be the most efficient way for consumers to select products produced according to best ecological practices, if market conditions, producer and consumer values, community, business, and government support were to radically change. Meanwhile, research has shown that for fine wines, an eco-label has negative value, whereas for value wines. certifications are respected but seem to have little effect on actual purchasing behavior.

The now classic case of eco-labeling not working is that of the UK supermarket giant Tesco, which tried and failed to make a carbon reduction label a valued indicator on its products--albeit hailed as a revolution in green marketing. It lacked critical mass and credence and has been dropped.

Eco-profiling is different from eco-labeling, which is different from eco-certification and all of these fall under the sustainability umbrella, which lacks explicit meaning.

"eco-certification leads to a price premium while the use of the eco-label doesn’t." Eco-Labeling Strategies and Price-Premium: The Wine Industry Puzzle

"Ecolabeling" is a voluntary (in the US) method of environmental performance proclamation that is increasingly considered a desirable practice worldwide, despite a few notable glitches. An "ecolabel" makes a claim about the positive environmental performance of a product or service within a specific product/service category according to standards that may be established by a standardizing body, e.g.,  such  organically farmed wine grapes. Sometimes an eco-label is an orphan, meaning without institutional backup. Most often, eco-labels lack backup of metrics and data, nor do data, claims, and metrics imply compliance with internationally acknowledged standard. Ecolabeling is sometimes just green-washing. For now,eco-labeling can be considered still in its infancy stage with uncertain life-expectancy.

Like the information presented on eco-labels, the environmental information found at most company websites is distrusted by most consumers and inadequate for creating a useful environmental profiling tool. Even wineries whose commitment to best practices is known world-wide (such as Taylors Wines, claiming to be the first carbon-neutral winery in the world or Rodney Strong, the first carbon-neutral in Sonoma County) present information difficult to use efficiently and effectively by a consumer who hopes to use the information to compare wineries in order to make an informed choice regarding which wine was produced according to the best practices.

Environmental profiles created by individual companies tend to feature their strong suits and downplay or omit altogether areas of less admirable performance.Most consumers do not have the time or desire to research out how a company performs eitherin the areas that matter most for that company's context or for global environmental concerns. Comparison of a wine produced by one company with that of another from the perspective of who does what best or worst is almost impossible, e.g., who is responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions per bottle of wine, or whose wine embodies the best water-use efficiency, or who produces the most waste per 750 ml bottle of wine. Some wineries report some of the data for specific years and others provide a narrative report of how sustainable they are, which makes for non-comparability. What is required to build consumer confidence is a well-scrutinized set of standards with an absolute minimum of indicators, such as water-use efficiency, green-house gas emissions, renewable energy as a percentage of each bottle of wine produced, waste, chemical use, soil preservation, community engagement, biodiversity, and  restoration.

Tending towards the  Credible

"At its simplest, if you give people better information then they are in a position to make better choices. And one of the most effective ways to give people meaningful information on a product is through a labelling scheme." http://www.carbontrust.com/news/2014/09/business-and-public-sector-fuelling-growth-of-ecolabelling-are-consumers-catching-on?"

 In contrast to "green" symbols, or general sustainability claim statements published by manufacturers and service providers, the most credible labels are based on carefully vetted life cycle considerations; they are awarded by impartial third-parties in relation to certain products or services that are independently determined to meet transparent environmental leadership criteria. The most useful labels are iconic, memorable, credible, with data sources that can be verified, and not easily confused with other labels. That said, a working labeling scheme has yet to be implemented.

Life-cycle Assessment
 

 Arguably, the best certifications are based on life-cycle assessments that include suppliers and distribution processes. Some life cycle assessment-- perhaps  for complexity and limited resource reasons--do not consider either supply or distribution chain and define their assessments at winery gates, so published data that does include these elements cannot be fairly compared with producers who omit supply and distribution or indirect impacts, such as loss of non-renewable fossil fuels. Many do not evaluate impacts according to context, since water use in a desert of Mediterranean climate has different meaning for a community than water use where rainfall is frequent and dependable, such as equatorial zones. Transportation critically affects CO2 per bottle of wine, but most wineries avoid  impacts from transportation between winery gates and the consumer's table, or the specific  contex of the winery and its vineyards,t, since water use in a desert of Mediterranean climate has different meaninLlife Cycle Assessment seems like the best overall concept to promote.

Eco's bad rap

Eco-labeling is avoided by most producers of fine wines (always are focus) for a variety of reasons, including image and profit. Probably the most important fundamental reason for avoidance by both consumer and producer is the lack of standardization for ecological assessment and ecological reporting with language, concepts, agreement regarding what should be included, by whom, and in what form with what degree of verification by another party, and metrics (that can be compared across industries). In a global economy, lack of standardization across all borders leads to confusion, information overload, lack of credibility, and a tendency to avoid the problem by avoiding the iconography and the problem indicated, which is probably why eco-labeling has failed to make a comeback, despite its increasing importance as a shortcut for consumer product guidance.Eco-labeling is also expensive, according to reports by Tesco in Great Britain.

A second reason for avoiding eco-labeling is the association of some consumers with organic wine that lacks added sulfites, hence have turned out to be unstable once on the shelf. In the 1970s in the US there was a movement towards the organic that led to organic labels on wines, sometimes with unreliable qualities. Further confusion stems from regulations regarding labeling, so organic farming and organic vinification and organic wines have three different meanings and sets of regulations. Consumers have avoided the whole problem by avoiding these labels. The biodynamic label also has negative price premium value (see research cited below) with consumers, so again, is avoided. Although the problem of unreliable quality in wines without chemicals no longer affects the wine indus try, the stigma remains.

Even the best certifications have problems

The ISO 14000 family of standards is probably the world's gold standard for environmental certification, with ISO 14044 the world's best researched life cycle assessment set of standards.  These certifications are not particularly producer or user-friendly, and most consumers will not take the time to try to understand what any of the ISO 14000 family certifications imply for ecological performance when making purchasing decisions. http://www.evergreen-fabrics.com/EverGreen-Certifications

Certifications

Eco certification is at a more evolved state than labeling and usually indicates compliance with a body of standards regarding environmental management and performance established by a respected organization and verified by an independent third part agency. Research suggests that eco certification such as the ISO 14044 is valued by producers and consumers of high-end wines, even though eco-labeling is not. On the other hand,eco-labeling is respected by consumers of lower-end wines. Yet research also suggests that most consumers are confused by the abundance of non-standadrized eco-labels and most consumers also find the term "sustainable" vague and untrustworthy.


Like the eco-label situation, there is a lack of generally accepted standards and understanding of existing certification systems, and as a result, certifications rarely influence consumer behavior. Perhaps, in the context of global environmental crisis and imminent crisis conditions of the global environment of 2015, the time is right for re-evaluation of the value of certification labeling across borders. Consumers and producers both need to collaborate in  rethinking eco-labeling and eco-profiling.

Sustainability, Climate Change adaptation and mitigation, waste management, chemical inputs, recycling, Global Warming, CO2 parts per million, and transparency are only recently considerations directed towards company practices and disclosures. In some cases full transparent disclosure would be damaging to public opinion and/or profit. In some cases, company activities are illegal, such as the dumping of toxic waste into rivers and lakes causing cancer, birth malformation, and other negative effects on health and well-being. Some denial of climate change or environmental degradation still exists, so anything related is devalued by the denial segment of the population.. Trade-offs between economic well-being through new oil lines, fracking, coal mining and use, or nuclear-power fuel generation with environmental vibrancy are all loaded with special interests, many of whom resist en masse environmental mitigation, reporting, or adaptation.

At the same time that eco-labeling simplifies consumer decision-making when ecological vibrancy is part of the decision optimization, eco-labeling also pressures producers to evaluate variables in their production processes employing user-friendly metrisc such as CO2e or carbon footprint.

  

Perhaps, in the context of global environmental crisis and imminent crisis conditions of the global environment of 2015, the time is right for re-evaluation of the value of certification labeling. Consumers and producers both need to collaborate in  rethinking eco-labeling and eco-profiling. Sustainability, climate change adaptation and mitigation, waste management, chemical inputs, recycling, global warming, CO2 parts per million, and transparency are only recently considerations directed towards company practices and disclosures, and many obstacles persist in both disclosure and best environmental practices. In some cases full transparent disclosure would be damaging to public opinion and/or profit. In some cases, company activities are illegal, such as the dumping of toxic waste into rivers and lakes causing cancer, birth malformation, and other negative effects on health and well-being .In many cases, toxic dumping preceded clear understanding of the long-term effects on environment and its inhabitants.

Denial of climate change or environmental degradation by a few still exists in 2016, so anything related is devalued by the denial segment of the population.. Trade-offs between economic well-being through new oil lines, fracking, coal mining and use, or nuclear-power fuel generation with environmental vibrancy are all loaded with special interests, many of whom resist environmental mitigation, reporting, or adaptation.

"eco-certification leads to a price premium while the use of the eco-label doesn’t." Eco-Labeling Strategies and Price-Premium: The Wine Industry Puzzle  A second reason for avoiding eco-labeling is the association of some consumers with organic wine that lacks added sulfites hence tend to be unstable once on the shelf, so their quality over time has been unreliable. In the 1970s in the US there was a movement towards the organic that led to organic labels on wines, sometimes with unreliable qualities. Further confusion stems from regulations regarding labeling, so organic farming and organic vinification wines have two different meanings and sets of regulations. Consumers have avoided the whole problem by avoiding these labels. The biodynamic label also has negative price premium value (see research cited below) with consumers, so again, is avoided. Although the problem of unreliable quality in wines without chemicals no longer affects the wine industry, the stigma remains. The Persuadables Best advice from successful activists is to target those most readily persuadable,  understand what motivates them, and identify and strategically remove the obstacles  for these specific groups to following through.on their green intentions or desire to do the right thing. Very recent research into what motivates consumers to carry through or fail to carry through intended green behavior indicates that current approaches are not working. Several novel approaches have been suggested, including1) targeting those segments of the population in developed economies and emerging markets that are most likely to engage in green behaviors if their demands were to be satisfied; 2 ) removing obstacles to changing behavior for those specific segments of the population; 3 ) developing leadership models in specific communities with de facto leaders already on-boardto implement proenvironmental behaviors; 4) strategically enlisting well-defined communities in a process in which they participate fully in identifying problems, priorities, obstacles, and solutions and take responsibility for implementing, monitoring, and reinforcing specific behaviors; and using community regulations, fines,  right-thing-to-do, and group-affiliation strategies; and 5) clarifying what sustainabiltity entails on a moment-to-moment basis for each stakeholder and which producers engage in Best Ecological Practices and making this information useful and readily available to communities.

 

 

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