The Future of Transparency in Sustainable Product Labelling
If you’re a savvy grocery shopper, chances are you regularly check nutrition labels. Nutrition labels are a great way to understand how foods will affect our bodies. But what if we want to know how the products we purchase will impact the environment?
Corporations, such as manufacturing giant, Unilever, which owns brands such as: Hellman’s, Ben & Jerry’s, and Vaseline — is aiming to provide consumers with an answer to these questions through carbon or environmental labeling.
Marc Engel, a Unilever executive, believes that this Environmental (Eco) Labeling would be a useful tool for consumers to better understand their personal environmental impact with each purchase they make (Financial Times, 2020). Eco Labeling can provide information such as: recycled materials used in packaging, amount of CO2 generated in production, and if the product meets the standards of various sustainability groups.
When shopping at the grocery store, every food product on the shelf has a nutrition label, but as a consumer, don’t you also want to know how it’s impacting the very ground you stand on? Environmental Impact Labelling offers us, the consumers, an easy way to see our impact on our food and water sources through producer transparency. This labelling can help us stop taking natural resources for granted and shift our focus to supporting brands that align with sustainable practices.
Nisolo, a shoe company based in Nashville, is one example of a company focused on improving transparency in labelling. Their Sustainability Facts Label scores a product across 200 sustainability metrics, resulting in a label that lists 10 categories focused on People and the Planet. The methodology is completely open-sourced and they invite brands to adopt and build upon their label to create an even better approach.
Softly encourages each of you to step up your shopping awareness. As a consumer, YOU have the power in the choices you make when you shop. Softly will help you make smart purchasing decisions based on what YOU value; values such as low carbon, cruelty-free, fair wages, country of origin, or free of a certain harmful ingredient. We also encourage each of you to reach out to your favorite brands and challenge them to improve their transparency and sustainability.
At the end of the day, if environmentally friendly products sell better, all manufacturers have an incentive to produce them — and standards rise overall. We all can continue to tread this Earth simply, sustainably, and SOFTLY.
Are you a sustainable brand interested in learning more about eco-labels or sustainability certifications? Join our weekly webinars featuring insights from the top certification organizations! Click here to register.
References
https://www.ft.com/content/45dbe119-391b-41e5-8b6a-c6b5a082d062?shareType=nongift
