Programme description:
In recent years, the idea of the ‘green’ or ‘political’ consumer, who expresses his or her political beliefs in the everyday life, has been widely embraced. Eager to satisfy the needs of this new market segment, companies have consequently allocated substantial resources to environmental management, social accountability, corporate citizenship, occupational health and safety and so forth. During the 90s, the industrialised world had also witnessed a growing number of environmental labels, which was expected to guide the political consumers in their shopping decisions. Evaluations of these environmental labelling (eco-labelling) programmes indicate that some labels and some product groups are receiving much attention, while others live in obscurity. Based on an analysis of the direct and indirect costs and benefits of environmental labelling, the project analyses some of the factors, which determine the market impact of environmental labelling. The project has the following objectives:

Investigation of the costs and benefits in relation to the implementation and maintenance of environmental labelled products. The project only concerns the EU flower and the Nordic Swan label.
Analysis of underlying causalities. Why does the impact differ among product groups and labelling schemes?
Development of a set of recommendations for companies, which consider environmental labelling.

The project was financed by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency.

The project was completed in 2004.

Projectreport
Executive summary is available for download:
Executive summary

The final report is available for download:
The Pros and Cons of Environmental Labelling
(only a Danish Working Paper in pdf-format is available)

If You need further information, please contact:
Department of Operations Management, Copenhagen Business School
Peter Neergaard, 38 15 24 04, pn.om@cbs.dk
Esben Rahbek Pedersen, 38 15 27 41, erp.om@cbs.dk