Green Labelling

I have been surfing the blogging world recently to gauge opinion on green and ethical product labelling, and it occurs to me the that there is a fundamental flaw in the approach that is being taken by those who are posting opinions. The number of different labels used and the differences in information provided are, rather than making shopping for ethical goods easier, just increasing the confusion for the mainstream shopper.
What about a completely new approach to this subject, by turning labelling on its head. Imagine shopping if everything that is proven and audited to be ethical, eco and fair was allowed to be sold free of labels. Everything else was forced, by law, to be labelled with who, what, where, when and how it was made, shipped and sold.
The consumer would then be presented with a real, informed choice. Companies that just exploit people and the planets resources to make a big profit would be forced at point of sale to display their lack of ethical credentials. Would you buy a cheap dress at primark if it had a label on it stating the wages and living conditions of the poor kid in the third world who made it? Would you buy that nice new top if a large label on the sleeve listed the chemicals used and toxic waste produced in its manufacture and journey to the shop?
It can be an expensive business having to label everything to prove your ethical credentials on the products you sell, why do we think it’s reasonable to let the good guys bear that cost? To change the industry we need to penalise the bad guys, using the same marketing tricks used by them, to hit them where it really hurts. If Tesco were forced to say that “Every little helps us to destroy the lives and habitat of the people who supply us”, instead of getting away with just “every little helps”, it would have a monumental impact on the people who buy from them. Ethical would then very quickly become business as usual.
It is a well known con to describe industry as being consumer led, it is not. It is led by people whose only objective is to make a big profit at the expense of someone else, and to use well known marketing and advertising techniques to disguise the truth. As a society we must take the lead and lobby our politicians to produce legislation that protects the good guy’s for a change, and put the onus and the cost on those who seek to make those obscene profits and expect us to pay for it.
PS. Find the good guys on green-uk.co.uk including:- Adili, Howies, Beaumont Organics, Patagonia, untouched world, and many many more.