As UK retailers outdo eachother in their efforts to build consumer and political good will, they have had to develop immediate and compelling ways to help consumers do the right thing. Among other techniques they have demonstrated that labelling can not only sway consumers, but change the company as well – in a way that makes them better citizens. A case in point: Sainsbury’s.
Sainsbury’s had determined that its key focus would be health. They worked with nutritionists to translate nutritional information into readily understood symbols – and came up with the “traffic light” (pictured above): red denotes “eat rarely”, orange “in moderation” and green “abundantly”. They moved the information from the back of the pack, to the front. Then they tested the symbol on their ready-to-eat meals.
In a tub-style refrigerator they put two meals: a vegetable curry with rice whose stoplight was all green, and Salmon in pastry, whose stoplight was largely red. And they rolled the cameras.
Shoppers would look in, reach for one product and look at the label; then reach for the other and look at the label; back and forth, and… by and large leave with the green label product. Over time, sales of the green-labelled products became important.
Interestingly, back in the development kitchens, developers didn’t want to be associated with the red-labels, and started to tweak their recipes to make them healthier. So that the label started to change everybody’s behaviour – for the better.
Not surprisingly Marks&Spencers has developed a similar label for its foods – and also puts the information on the front of the pack.
Which suggests that a similar scheme for environmental labelling could be developed. One idea would be to address the big LCA categories:
- Global Warming – gases released that contribute to global warming
- Toxicity – a measure of the toxic emissions to air, water and land
- Acid Rain – the potential to damage water and soil systems by increasing their acidity
- Resource Depletion – the extraction of non-renewable resources from the lithosphere which is not a sustainable practice
Alternatively, it could be based on current key categories – though these are less accurate and comprehensive: Waste (packaging recyclability); CO2 (climate change); transport (food miles). In any case, they would need to incorporate the impacts associated with the food, preparation, packaging and transportation, on average, for that product.
As WalMart (and Asda, its UK subsidiary), Tesco, and M&S have ambitious public goals (e.g. zero waste, carbon neutral, and the like) we could expect them to start testing such labels – as soon as they can develop some consensus behind them!
And when they do, what will this mean to you – and your products?
For assistance in thinking through the impacts of retailer’s environmental assessment and labelling programmes, contact ren-new!
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