{"id":4012,"date":"2016-04-28T11:51:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T10:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=51826"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:14","slug":"consumers-lost-in-jungle-of-quality-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2016\/04\/28\/consumers-lost-in-jungle-of-quality-marks\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumers lost in jungle of quality marks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Consumers are confronted with countless quality marks<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Suppose I went and counted quality marks in the supermarket, how many would I find?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t like to say\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Hazard a guess, just name ten.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cUtz, Fairtrade, EKO \u2013 there are dozens of them, I can\u2019t think of that many offhand.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet you deal with these quality marks on a daily basis! According to the independent sustainability organisation Milieu Centraal, there are two hundred. The average consumer can\u2019t see the forest for the trees. Why are there so many?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone can set up a quality mark, be they manufacturers,\u00a0sectors or international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Every agency which\u00a0issues a quality mark has its own preferences. One focuses on the conservation of rain forests, another on enhancing income in developing countries. And quality marks\u00a0compete with each other, as well. Everyone wants his or her quality mark to be the dominant one, which is why those involved often make compromises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that odd?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, in a way. But the dilemma is\u00a0that your market share will shrink if you are too strict. It is a case of balancing on a tightrope. You have to keep a good watch on everything\u00a0or your quality mark doesn\u2019t amount to anything much. However, because you want to keep your customers \u2013 the providers of products \u2013\u00a0you have to turn a blind eye to things now and again. After all, a quality mark needs income, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why? Do you have to pay for a Fairtrade label?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat depends on the size of the company in question.\u00a0It varies from a few hundred to tens of thousands of euros. That is a lot of money, particularly for small farmers.\u00a0This is one of the problems associated with the enormous proliferation of quality marks. A farmer with a number of customers must go through a certification process several times for the same product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do we have quality marks?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThey fill the information vacuum. You assess a product\u00a0on its quality and price, but there are also things that you cannot see just by looking at it: the ecological and social processes involved in its realisation, for example. You cannot see the conditions under which an iPhone\u00a0has been made from its appearance and you cannot see whether pesticides have been used in the cultivation of a banana from its flavour. Quality marks supply us with information about these factors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the Dutch Parliament, Fatma Koser Kaya of D66 (Democrats 66) and Bart de Liefde of the VVD (People\u2019s Party for Freedom and Democracy), advocate tackling the uncontrolled growth of quality marks. Is that a good idea?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think so. You could argue for the merging of certain quality marks which overlap a great deal. And forbid any obviously misleading or hollow\u00a0ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you name a quality mark which is absolutely meaningless?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one which is \u2018a label prescribed by law\u2019 rather than a \u2018quality mark\u2019 and that is the measurement of the relative emission of CO2<\/sub> by new cars. In some countries, including the Netherlands,\u00a0cars are assessed, on a scale from A to G, on the basis of a comparison with other cars in the same category. This means that an energy-guzzling SUV (sport utility vehicle) can get an A label,\u00a0whereas it emits twice as much greenhouse gases as a small car with a C label. I find that totally misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the supermarket, we have the much-discussed green and blue \u2018tick\u2019 of the Stichting Kies Bewust (Conscious choice foundation), a foundation which we now know was set up by Unilever, Campina and Albert Heijn. That is pure deception of the public, isn\u2019t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is good to realise that the parties behind every quality mark\u00a0have a political or economic motive. And there are, of course, manufacturers who try to take us all for a ride. But that does not mean that quality marks\u00a0are not worthwhile. Perhaps\u00a0the tick erroneously creates the impression that this is an objective assessment and that the product concerned is a healthy one but, basically, that applies to all quality marks. They are, by definition, imperfect instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n

You formulated that very carefully!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is whether it is better to have an imperfect quality mark than no quality mark at all. By and large, it is preferable to have something than nothing. Take the example of the\u00a0Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals\u2019 Beter Leven<\/em> (Better life) quality mark which entails giving scores up to and including three stars for meat and eggs. One star on this quality mark scale doesn\u2019t mean much but, for many manufacturers, this is a stepping stone to a second or third star, and these categories indicate a substantial contribution to improving animal welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can I set up a quality mark tomorrow?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then people simply have to trust me?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cExactly. It is up to consumers to assess how credible the certifying party is and, moreover, how it implements sustainability \u2013 which brings us to the difficult part.\u00a0For one person, sustainability means using paper bags instead of plastic ones. For the next, it is an organic production process. Yet another feels that humans should be one of the key elements. Sustainability\u00a0is an enormously broad concept which everyone can interpret in his or her own way. Everyone can claim it.\u00a0Manufacturers who launch their own quality marks are naturally anything but independent. I am in favour of curbing the jumble of quality marks by means of sectoral, or even cross-sectoral,\u00a0quality marks. The point is, though, that these\u00a0all-embracing quality marks \u2013 which apply to both textile manufacturers and cacao farmers\u00a0\u2013 are so general that all kinds of vagueness,\u00a0and thus opportunities to get out of the obligations, arise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018The question is whether it is better to have an imperfect quality mark than no quality mark at all\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t–<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFrank Wijen\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Why isn\u2019t there a ministry to monitor quality marks?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be a good idea.\u00a0There are all sorts of different groups, such as Sins\u00a0of Greenwashing and Rank a Brand, who assess companies\u2019 sustainability claims. The problem is that there is no one single monitoring agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Great Britain, they have a traffic light system. Red is irresponsible, orange is slightly better and green is good. Things are a lot clearer then, surely?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds great; the question is what the underlying requirements are. The criteria are politically charged.\u00a0One person finds equal wages important and another, a free market. One person wants everything organic and another, better agricultural practices. Then again, one wants everything local and another, support for small farmers in developing countries. What do you do with a product which scores well in terms of the environment but less well in terms of social elements\u00a0and how do you integrate dissimilar environmental effects such as biodiversity and toxicity? There is another aspect we have not mentioned yet: we also have a strong tendency to look at everything from a western standpoint and to condemn child labour, for example. But child labour is not always bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

I beg your pardon. Did I hear you correctly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn an ideal world there would be no child labour.\u00a0However, my position is that the alternatives are sometimes worse, and that direct, rigorous measures are often counterproductive. A few decades back it appeared that the balls used during the World Cup Football had been stitched together by children. This aroused mass indignation and the\u00a0Pakistani manufacturers, who employed entire families, were banned. The western\u00a0world patted itself on the back but a study carried out by fellow researchers later showed that the families concerned subsequently sank deeper into poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ynte van Dam, marketing researcher in Wageningen, the Netherlands, obtained his doctorate last month with a study which shows that positive \u2018quality marks\u2019 have hardly any effect. If we really want to make a difference, he contends, we should use \u2018negative quality marks\u2019. What is your opinion on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the \u2018naming and shaming\u2019 strategy:\u00a0a heavy-handed approach. It may be effective in the short term but bombarding people with negative information doesn\u2019t work in the long term, so you have to be very cautious about doing so. In the past, organisations like Greenpeace did nothing but pillory companies\u00a0but nowadays they are more inclined to point out companies that are doing the right thing and actually I think that this is a better tactic. You create positive dynamics\u00a0so that companies realise that they are not just culprits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sugar tax is currently being introduced in Great Britain and cigarettes have been taxed for some time now. Why don\u2019t we opt for a similar method for dealing with products which are not sustainable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very easy to conclude that cigarettes are not good for the health but the level of sustainability\u00a0of a great many products is very difficult to analyse.\u00a0Quality marks have been set up for jeans, for example,\u00a0including those by Kuyichi, but then you have to deal with manufacturers of thread, material, buttons, and so on and so forth in various countries.\u00a0To analyse a whole chain of this kind and regulate it effectively is no mean feat.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you do when faced with all the chocolate on the shelf at the supermarket?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is chocolate with a quality mark, I choose that.\u201d<\/p>\n

You haven\u2019t become cynical?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you mustn\u2019t do that. Even low-threshold quality marks have a purpose. When a manufacturer initiates a development path, he or she often acquires a taste for sustainability and discovers its advantages. It all starts as symbolic politics, intent on pleasing public opinion or under pressure from customers but, ultimately, a lot of companies genuinely strive to make their production sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Frank Wijen<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\t

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Frank Wijen is Associate Professor at\u00a0the Department of Strategic\u00a0Management and Entrepreneurship\u00a0at the Rotterdam School of\u00a0Management. He carries out research on institutions for sustainable business practices,\u00a0and international\u00a0self-regulation, in particular. Among other activities, he has edited two editions of \u2018A handbook of globalisation\u00a0and environmental policy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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