| What's a label worth? A lot, it seems,
when it comes to towels in a New York shop. Two Harvard University researchers,
Michael Hiscox and Nicholas Smyth conducted an experiment on two sets of towels.
One lot carried a label with the logo "Fair and Square" and the following
message: These towels have been made under fair labor conditions, in a safe and healthy working environment which is free of discrimination, and where management has committed to respecting the rights and dignity of workers. The other set had no such label. Over five months, the researchers observed the impact of making various changes such as switching the label to the other set of towels and raising prices. The results were striking: not only did sales of towels increase when they carried the Fair and Square label, they carried on increasing each time the price was raised. No wonder companies are keen to appeal to ethically minded consumers, whether on labor standards or green credentials. On greenery, British consumers are divided into four broad groups. About one in ten is passionately green and will {{U}}go out of their way to shop accordingly{{/U}}. At the other end of the spectrum one-quarter are not interested. In-between are those who care but want green consumption to be easy, and those who are vaguely concerned but don't see how they can make a difference. That represents an opportunity: three-quarters of British consumers are interested in the green theme in some way. But even the keenest ethical consumer faces complicated trade-offs, and sometimes the apparently obvious ethical choice turns out to be the wrong one. Surely it must be greener for Britons to buy roses from the Netherlands than ones air-freighted from Kenya? In fact, a study at Cranfield University showed the carbon footprint of the Dutch roses to be six times as large because they had to be grown in heated greenhouses. Consumers are right to be suspicious of the ethical claims made for many products. A recent study of the labels of 1 018 products in big stores in North America by TerraChoice, an environmental marketing agency, found that almost all of them were guilty of some form of "green washing". They did not tell outright lies, but nor did they tell the whole truth. |