How can I work towards more consumer transparency?

July 10, 2009 12:33 PM

How can I work towards more consumer transparency?

So I have wondered many times why the government (I'm in Germany right now but I think this question applies elsewhere as well) does not make it easier for consumers to distinguish between "good" and "bad" products. By good I mean a product that is produced as environmentally friendly as possible.

Wouldn't it just be logical that each product in the grocery (or really every other store) is labelled extensively with the following information:

-more specific nutrition facts than currently
-where exactly every single subgredient comes from
-what the net carbon dioxide balance is
-how much water was used to produce the product
-probably other relevant information that I'm forgetting right now

Of course the information could be summarised in a table with one bigger overall environmental rating.

So for instance if I'm standing in the fruit section of the supermarket I would be able to see with a glance that the apples from Chile need ten times the ressources to be available here in the shelf than the German apples (of course this example is kind of obvious).

My best guess would be that there is huge lobby resistance against better labeling.

But I'm pretty sure others have thought of this before, so I was wondering if you guys knew of any consumer organization that wants such an "eco-label", too. I know there are many that support better labelling, but I haven't heard of any organization that wants the carbon dioxide and the water-usage label.

If there is anything like what I have in mind out there, I would love to get involved and help bringing more transparency to our stores.
Thanks a lot.

posted by Vidamond to Law & Government (3 answers total)

Walkers crisps in the UK have carbon labels. There are other examples. But it's a little easier to calculate for a packet of crisps than for a product that has a lot of ingredients, like a sauce or a packaged meal.
posted by IanMorr at 1:28 PM on July 10, 2009

The amount of work which would be involved in creating those labels (i.e. in figuring out the numbers) plus the degree of uncertainty involved (huge, in some cases) plus the fact that some of what you're talking about is difficult to even define unambiguously means it would be a huge drag on the economy.

In exchange for your labels, would it be OK for you if everything you bought cost 30% more? I assure you, for most people it would not be, and that is what politicians are reacting to.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:47 PM on July 10, 2009

I can't seem to find anything off-hand, besides the brief commentary here, but I've understood that within food groups price is still the best proxy for environmental impact once all factors have been included. Subingredients would be nigh impossible for anything not plucked from the ground (and then: fertilizer, incesticides natural or no?). Water/land/labor is cheaper in places where it is plenty, and transportation can be extremely efficient on large scales. The higher prices you pay at local markets comes from higher transportation costs (lots of people driving trucks to the market uses more oil than horse to large truck to freighter to supermarket), and the larger environmental consumption of the labor that produces it.

Knowing the differences in the details you listed may matter between, say, beef vs chicken vs veggies. But within those categories, price is going to be a better proxy of resource consumption. Labeling individual items will then just not matter to most people without clearer differences.

This unfortunately also doesn't help if you want to, say, deter use of cotton produced near the Aral Sea. That cotton is mixed with others in textiles, and until environmental protections or water rights are established, the price and environmental impact (outside of water) will be much lower than elsewhere.

So to sum up: Publishing those details per food group are useful, publishing those details between similar items simply won't provide valuable information given the efforts needed to produce it.
posted by FuManchu at 2:42 PM on July 10, 2009