With the proliferation of 'green' symbols, who do you think should be taking control and developing a 'one point of reference' c02 measurement system for all brands and products? Is it possible? At what level should it be enforced? Government? Trade bodies? Category by category?
A popular view of Integrated Marketing Communications is that messages should be harmonised so that audiences perceive consistent meanings. Is this utopian when it comes to sustainability, or realistic?
Wednesday 10 October 2007
Confusing control with order
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I tried to get one off the ground called "not bad"
It was going to reflect an overall judgement of ethical & environmental credentials, would be judged by teenagers as a part of the citizenship curriculum at school (they'd get a thorough briefing on the white goods industry & would rank the companies in order) was moderate and hence embracing mainstream brands who do a little good & not too much harm (the top 2/3 in any category would be rated 'not bad'). At the time (2003) it was quite hard to work out how to fund or support it, and also we didnt want to spoil an initiative that was launching from the Good Shopping guide on similar lines.
On CO2 specifically the carbon trust have a labelling scheme which they plan to roll out after consultation (another 9 or 10 brands just signed up to the trial). CO2 is an interesting one, because what matters actually is progress, ie CO2 reduction, not just absolute amounts. Their scheme is based on your plans to cut carbon over the next 2 years. It's quite tricky because of how to attribute carbon to individual products (if your CEO gets a cab, is that part of the overhead for this particular bag of crisps) & some argue that it is better to hold companies as a whole accountable rather than single product brands.
Tesco have said they will label 70,000 product linews to reflect their carbon impact. i suspect a central scheme you can compare between retailers would be better in the long run.
NB If you think about food labelling I dont think there is much evidence that people cant work with a clutter of different buying criteria. Not sure 'good food' would actually be as useful as organic, wholemeal, vegetarian, additive free, gm free etc. Within ethical shopping there's that whole debate between organic vs fairtrade vs local.
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