Pros and Cons of Eco-Labeling

Does that fair trade label do any good? What about organic?

Many companies market their products with labels like “organic,” “fair trade,” “Rainforest Alliance certified,” “vegan” or a slew of other supposedly sustainable certifications. Although these labels can provide useful information, they often have unintended consequences on public perception and the market. In this post, I explain the pros and cons of marketing products using eco-friendly labels. 

Pros

Labels Encourage Sustainable Business

Grocery shopping is like looking for love and product labels are like Tinder profiles. Companies have just a split second to convince shoppers to swipe right (left…? I don't use Tinder, the con is over) on their products, and the only way they can win over shoppers' attention is through labeling. This means that any sort of positive seal on product labels could give one company's product an advantage over another company's.

So, when non-sustainable companies see their competitors adding eco-labels, those non-sustainable companies become more motivated to be more eco-friendly. This competition between businesses could lead to a serious industry shift toward more sustainable practices.

Labels Inform Consumers

Sustainable labels not only set off trends in the dating pool, ahem, food industry, but they also give consumers real information about the products they buy. Knowing if your food is organic, or fair trade, or Rainforest Alliance Certified can help you make better decisions about which products you want to buy and which you don't.

These labels can also encourage shoppers to learn more about their food, where it comes from and how it was produced, which can help them become more conscious (and hopefully more environmentally friendly) consumers.

Cons

Labels Lead to Greenwashing

Greenwashing is like when everyone on Tinder says they're looking for the real thing, even though they probably aren't. It's when companies try to falsely market their products as environmentally friendly.

This is a really bad thing because if every product claims to be environmentally friendly when they actually aren't, this will become really confusing for consumers. Consumers won't be able to tell which products are actually eco and which are just fakers, so companies will be less motivated to actually become more sustainable.

Eco-labeling is Expensive

This one is plain and simple. Not everyone can afford to have professional pictures of their summer in Paris on their Tinder profile, just like not every company can afford to become sustainably certified. Many sustainability certification processes require that companies pay a fee and do mounds of paperwork before they are able to flaunt the sustainable label.

This is especially an issue for organic farmers, who have to practice organic farming for three years before they can become certified organic. In that three year time period, they have to practice organic farming but they cannot increase their produce prices to reflect that. This puts those farmers in a financial struggle that might make organic certification seem pointless. If small farmers or other food manufacturers are unable to get eco-labels, this could put them at a disadvantage to larger companies that can afford those labels.

Labels can create unnecessary fear

If everyone on Tinder says that they're 5' 10", people could start thinking that being 5' 10" is better than being 5' 5". This is basically what has happened with GMOs. Many companies started boasting that their foods were not genetically modified, which made consumers think that genetically modified foods were all bad.

Although the economic and social aspects of GMOs are majorly concerning, GMOs themselves have not been proven harmful to human health. Non-GMO labels have caused many consumers to unnecessarily fear of GMOs. This same thing could happen with other eco-labels in the future if shoppers do not do their research before hopping on the label bandwagon.