Are eco-labels doing the job?

Helene York

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to cut through the growing clutter of ‘green marketing’ and choose independently verified environmentally preferred products simply by comparing labels?

Certainly that’s the promise of eco-labels, from USDA Organic to Marine Stewardship Council-certified and a myriad of others. Those of us engaged in supply-chain analysis know the limitations of labels too well, but we tend to support these indicators anyway. Our customers expect them and they’re the best we’ve got right now. 

Or are they? New evidence may be suggesting otherwise.

The case for labels: When developed by third parties with significant input from thoughtful advisors, ‘eco-labels’ provide a certain hedge against spurious claims of environmental or social responsibility. There isn’t a farming operation anymore that doesn’t claim to be practicing ‘sustainable’ agriculture, or in the case of fish farming, aquaculture. Only independent evaluation against transparent high standards provides a basis for reliable claims. In the field of nutrition, where government agencies have the last word on labels, packaged goods manufacturers boldly and creatively assert numerous health claims. Unfortunately, only the factoids (e.g. grams of fiber or number of calories) are verifiable; subjective claims of ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ are unreliable at best.

Without eco-labels, many argue, unsubstantiated marketing taglines would fill the void. A November 2007 study of 1,108 consumer products found all but one committed at least one of Scott Case’s notorious “Six Sins of Greenwashing: the Sin of No Proof, Vagueness, Irrelevance, Fibbing, Lesser of Two Evils, and the Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off. The last sin was defined as “suggesting a product is ‘green’ based on a single environmental attribute or an unreasonably narrow set of attributes without attention to other important issues.” No fewer than 57 percent of products reviewed had committed this sin. A company marketing farmed Asian shrimp commits this sin when it proclaims “lower energy used” in entrée preparation while ignoring that the shrimp is grown using poor environmental practices. But a credible eco-label (even if it existed for farmed shrimp) couldn’t address this problem by itself.

The case against labels: In the current issue of Conservation Biology, Jennifer Jacquet and Daniel Pauly argue that market-based initiatives, while well-intentioned, “unduly discriminate against small-scale fishers for their lack of resources to provide data for certification.” The Marine Stewardship Council’s seal of approval for wild-capture fisheries, which is emerging as the ‘gold standard’ certification, draws particular attention. “The MSC bias against small-scale fisheries is neither intentional nor unacknowledged, and it stems from real technical difficulties in defining sustainability criteria for fisheries that are data poor.”

Jacquet and Pauly show that small-scale fisheries produce as much annual food for human consumption and use less than one-eighth the fuel of their industrial counterparts, but are being undermined by well-intentioned eco-labeling initiatives because only large-scale operations can afford the certification assessment fees. (They also roundly criticize ill-conceived fuel subsidies.) Eco-labels can provide the assurance that the producer has met basic goals, but may inadvertently drive business away from the suppliers most able to meet the highest goals because the smaller producers can’t prove their products are ‘sustainable.’ What may be true for wild seafood could apply to small-scale agricultural and aquacultural production as well.

Is this a problem inherent to eco-labels, or is the problem rooted in who is paying for the certification? If public policymakers want smaller producers who meet important environmental and social criteria to have a market advantage, public agencies could underwrite certification fees. To truly level the playing field, though, large-scale buyers would still have to adapt their sourcing practices and value regionally-procured supplies more than they do currently.

Jacquet and Pauly’s criticism should be considered carefully by policymakers, consumer advocates and businesses with progressive procurement strategies. Does our support of eco-labels help or hurt the producers best-positioned to ensure sustainable food supplies for the long term? Does the criticism reflect inherent weaknesses in the way businesses operate (ie, looking for an easy indicator) or are they a warning signal to change our course?

Eco-label certifiers know their mechanism isn’t the whole answer: The underlying measurements of environmental performance are often based on imperfect or incomplete data. They rely on generalizations, rather than assessments, of the enormous variety of production practices. But as business purchasers we need to ask the questions: Is the criticism stinging enough to move away from eco-labels or do we need to give the more robust eco-labels further support to become truly effective even though they will never be perfect? Do the labels represent just one tool to augment many strategies? Is anyone sharing enough information about their current challenges or is everyone just claiming to be ‘green’?

Consumers choose products with reassuring labels because they don’t trust marketing claims or policymakers to support the most environmentally responsible food producers. They’re justified in their skepticism. Hungry to do the right thing, many will respond to eco-labels, despite both known and unrecognized weaknesses. Responsible businesses that are engaged in continuous improvement must educate their customers about their supply chain challenges and go beyond what eco-labels can guarantee to create lasting environmental change. Relying on labels alone may leave the real opportunities behind.

Helene York is the director of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation. Her regular column on sustainable food business appears exclusively at sustainableindustries.com.