Policy Recommendations: Lack of Information

Policy Recommendations

In order to encourage companies to make tradeoffs between social, environmental, and economic concerns, steps must be taken to lower the barriers to consuming sustainable products: (1) high price, (2) lack of information, and (3) lack of availability, and (4) concern for capital so they may experience sales growth. By breaking down these barriers consumers may begin to see the real costs of the products they purchase, which may diminish their concern for capital, or their willingness to preference capital over sustainability concerns when they are in conflict.

(2) Information

Educate the Consumer: Because green products are often difficult to comprehend, the businesses that sell them ought to see themselves as educators rather than just profit generators. It is important for a company not only to explain its own products, but also the larger issues like environmental degradation, climate change, and social instability in order to place their product at the forefront of consumers minds when it comes to sustainability.

The Difficult Diaper Decision: The complex nature of this process is worth nothing. First of all, what should be considered sustainable can be a complicated choice, which can be affected by vested interests to promote particular products. Take, for instance, one’s choice to use disposable or cloth diapers for his new baby. Since the average child uses over 5,000 diapers during the 30-month period before toilet training a parent may wish to choose the more sustainable type. In an attempt to convince parents that using disposable diapers is not overly degrading of the environment Proctor and Gamble commissioned a three-year study at the University of Michigan to determine the effects of disposable diapers once they enter the landfill. The research maintains that disposable diapers are environmentally safe (Proctor & Gamble, 1989). Despite this research, however, neither disposable nor cloth diapers can be easily identified as the sustainable choice (Smith & Pitts, n.d.).

Disposable diapers account for about 80 percent of the diapers used in the US. Convenience is the major reason given by parents, particularly in dual-career families where time to care for cloth diapers may be limited. Group day care restrictions, which may require single use diapers also influences the preferred diapering method. Families who lack access to laundry equipment may also find cloth diapers burdensome to care for (Smith & Pitts, n.d.). Disposable diapers account for an estimated 1.5 to 2.0 percent of municipal solid waste. With landfills reaching capacity, solutions for the disposal of all solid waste is a concern, and disposable diapers generate four times as much waste as cloth diapers. An archaeological study of garbage from 1977 to 1985 determined that disposable diapers accounted for about 1% of all solid waste in landfills (Rathje, 1989).

Although disposable diapers pose environmental concerns from a solid waste perspective, cloth diapers raise concerns regarding air and water pollution. The reusable nature of cloth diapers reduces the solid waste problem, but laundering of cloth diapers requires water, energy, and chemicals in the form of laundry detergent, which may contribute to water pollution. Franklin Associates, Ltd. (1990) conducted a study that concluded that cloth diapers use about twice as much energy and four times as much water as disposables and created greater air and water pollution than disposable diapers.

So, although disposable diapers use more raw material in the manufacturing process, cloth diapers use greater resources for to maintain them. This means that there might be two potentially environmentally responsible choices. Where land is plentiful, but water is in short supply, disposable diapers may be the best choice. On the other hand, areas that have an overabundance of trash in landfills but have adequate water supplies may opt for the cloth diaper. It is also possible that the most environmentally responsible choice is choosing some combination of disposable and cloth diapers.

Energy Star: Clearly, it is difficult to accurately assess the sustainability impacts of products, and it may not be appropriate to fully trust companies to identify the most sustainable product; for these reasons, nonprofits and government agencies should also take up the cause of sustainability education. Energy provides a model. This program, a joint effort launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Energy in 1992, educates consumers about the way suitable products can cut energy use, save consumers money, and protect the environment. Every appliance that meets government energy-efficiency standards can carry the Energy Star label, which has gained widespread consumer recognition and trust. Because federal regulations mandate energy labels for certain kinds of equipment, almost half of the air conditioners sold in the United States during 2005 carried the Energy Star sticker (McKinsey, 2008).

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to know when to trust eco-labels like Energy Star. Indeed, there are about 600 eco-labels worldwide being used by companies and non-profit organizations (80 in the United States). “They cover almost every category imaginable -- from textiles to tea and tourism, from forest products to food” (Elperin, 2010). Because certification is a self-regulated industry the integrity of these labels varies wildly. So, while the best certification systems may have brought increased accountability to markets that used to be largely unregulated most other certification systems make claims that cannot be proved. EcoLogo, a consultant on verification, surveyed more than 2,200 North American products and found that more than 98 percent lacked proof to justify their claims (Case, 2008).

In order for eco-labels to be effective, it’s essential that a body take responsibility for ensuring that the certification systems in place are legitimate. Without this assurance, purchasing sustainable products is unlikely to become any easier. This responsibility could fall on a government agency, like the EPA, or a trustworthy non-profit organization. In the absence of a body like this, it may be more effective for consumers to look for other tools that can help them access more dependable information about the goods they buy.

GoodGuide and other Decision Helping Tools: Mobile phone applications like the GoodGuide provide an inventive way for consumers to directly access complex information regarding the sustainability impacts of the goods they are about to purchase simply by scanning the barcode. The GoodGuide aggregates and analyzes data on both product and company performance and employs a health hazard assessment, an environmental impact assessment, and a social impact assessment to identify major impacts to human health, the environment, and society. Each of these categories is then further analyzed within specific issue areas, such as climate change policies, labor concerns, and product toxicity. Currently, GoodGuide’s database includes over 1,100 base criteria with which they evaluate products and companies (Good Guide, 2010).

Given the well-established notion that a trade-off between effort and accuracy is inherent to human decision making (Payne et al., 1993), an application like this will reduce the effort required to make sustainable product decisions as well as improve the accuracy of these decisions by giving consumers access to more dependable information in an easy to use format. An application like this does not require consumers to trust the claims on a product’s package or eco-labels, although they may choose to. Rather, they will be more able to capitalize on the enormous amount of information available about sustainability in a more objective way, which may enable them to make more accurate sustainable product decisions than they could otherwise.