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So you buy fair-trade or eco-friendly products, and you think that is
a good thing, right? Think again. What if so-called ‘ethical consumers’
are the very ones standing between us and sustainable future?

I’m crazy, right? Maybe, but here is why I say it. By creating a
premium-priced, niche market for ‘ethical consumption’, companies have
been able to present a responsible front to the world, while leaving the
vast majority of their products – which are, by implication, less
ethical, less responsible, less sustainable – unquestioned and
unchanged. At the same time, a small group of usually well-to-do Western
consumers have been able to ease their conscience by feeling that they
are making a positive difference.

Now let me be clear. I am not against organic or fair-trade or eco-friendly products per se. That would
be insane. Clearly, there are groups of producers – usually poor
farmers in the Third World – that have benefited from these initiatives.
What I am against is the voluntary nature and premium pricing
of sustainable and responsible products. The combination of these two
factors has ensured that, with one or two exceptions, these products
have never gone to scale. As compared with the total and ongoing impacts
of mainstream shopping habits, ethical consumption, laudable as it is,
has remained marginal at best and totally insignificant at worst.

The UK’s Sustainable Consumption Roundtable says, ‘we know that there
is a considerable gap – the so-called ‘value-action gap – between
people’s attitudes, which are often pro-environmental, and their
everyday behaviors’. We know the ‘value-action’ gap is partly explained
by price and availability of alternatives, but there’s something else.
Context matters as well.

To illustrate this, Timothy Devinney, author of The Myth of the Ethical Consumer,
reports on a very interesting experiment he conducted while researching
his book. The experiment took place at a coffee shop in central Sydney,
Australia, over a period of several weeks. This coffee shop displayed a
large and prominent sign indicating the products available, their
prices and active specials. To this was added, quite obtrusively,
another special, indicating: We have Fair Trade coffee! No extra charge.
Just ask.

Here’s what he found. Unprompted, with only the sign to notify them
of the availability of the ‘ethical’ alternative, less than 1% of
customers bothered to ask for Fair Trade coffee, even though it was
free. “When they prompted customers with a reminder that the ‘ethical’
alternative was available, the number of customers opting for the Fair
Trade option rose to 30%. They then went a step further and took the
customer’s privacy away: each time the clerk prompted a customer with
the Fair Trade option, we ensured there was someone standing next to
that person at the counter. In this situation, the number of ‘ethical
consumers’ rose to 70%.”

This is a hugely important lesson: If we want to achieve scalability
of sustainable and responsible products and services, we cannot leave it
to the passive choices of customers. Context is critical, and a little
bit of peer pressure goes a long way. But do we really want to resort to
public embarrassment to achieve scalability?

The alternative is the trend towards ‘choice editing’. The idea of
choice editing is likely to get free-market fundamentalists all in a
tizz, but the fact is that manufacturers and retailers choice edit all
the time – for example on quality, price, aesthetics and brand. The only
difference is now we are asking them to add sustainability and
responsibility to their list of criteria.

So who is doing choice editing? Well, outdoor clothing company Patagonia converted to 100% organic cotton in 1996, frozen foods retailer Iceland banned genetically modified food in 1997 and carpet manufacturer Interface
has been using only renewable (green tariff) energy since 1998, so it’s
not a new idea. The difference is now some of the big manufacturers and
retailers are coming on board. For example, Unilever has committed to sourcing 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably, Sainsbury’s only stocks Fairtrade bananas and Walmart has adopted an organic cotton and sustainable fish strategy.

Let’s look at Walmart in a little more detail to illustrate the
point. Walmart set a target to purchase all of its wild-caught fresh and
frozen fish for the U.S. market from Marine Stewardship Council
(MSC)-certified fisheries by the end 2011. They are also working work
with Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) and Aquaculture Certification
Council (ACC) to certify that all foreign shrimp suppliers adhere to
Best Aquaculture Practices standards in the U.S and by 2009, they were
already halfway there.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, George Chamberlain, president of
the Aquaculture Alliance puts the move in perspective: “The endorsement
drew attention; Wal-Mart buys more shrimp than any other U.S. company,
importing 20,000 tons annually – about 3.4% of U.S. shrimp imports. With
Wal-Mart’s nod, we went from trying to convince individual facilities
to become certified to having long waiting lines.”

Walmart also made a commitment to phase out chemically-treated
textile crops. By 2008, Wal-Mart was the largest buyer of organic
cotton, with more than 10 million pounds purchased annually. They are
also the world’s largest purchaser of conversion cotton – cotton grown
without chemicals, but waiting to be certified as organic. Former CEO,
Lee Scott, was under no illusions about the ripple effects when he made
the strategic choice-editing decision: ‘Cotton farmers can now invest in
organic farming because they have the certainty and stability of a
major buyer. Through leadership and purchasing power, all of us can
create new markets for sustainable products and services. We can drive
innovation. We can build acceptance. All we need is the will to step out
and make the difference.’

The question is, since not everyone has the size and economies of
scale of Walmart, should we pin our hopes on voluntary choice editing?
Or should we be lobbying for a different, and arguably more effective,
form of choice editing, namely good, old-fashioned government
regulation? The state regulates to ensure the health and safety of
products, so why not for sustainability as well?

About Wayne Visser
Dr Visser is founder
and director of the think-tank CSR International and the author of twelve
books. In addition, he is Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge
Programme for Sustainability Leadership and Visiting Professor of
Sustainability at Magna Carta College, Oxford. Before getting his PhD in CSR,
Dr Visser was Director of Sustainability Services for KPMG and Strategy Analyst
for Cap Gemini in South Africa. In 2011, he was listed as one of the Top 100
Thought Leaders in Europe and the Middle East. He lives in London, UK, and
enjoys art, writing poetry, spending time outdoors and travelling. A full
biography and much of his writing and art is on www.waynevisser.com.