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A Fortune in Ecolabels

Posted 7 February 2008 by Jacob Malthouse to Opinion.

Interesting Fortune article about ecolabelling hitting the mainstream in the UK.

Fortune spins the rise in provision of additional environmental information as the food industry responding to pressure from NGOs and other advocacy groups. This contradicts market research like that highlighted in our (GREEN) post yesterday. That research suggests that what we are seeing is a consumer demand driven phenomenon based on a need to understand where their products are coming from and what their impact is.

This is just capitalism. There’s nothing new or scary about it, and no one is being blackmailed into doing demanding quality food. US Companies like Whole Foods are doing very well responding to that demand. According to the Wall Street Journal the company posted a 35% increase in sales for the third quarter 2007.

I enjoy reading publications like Fortune and the Economist, but it increasingly seems like their bias is becoming clear, and it’s only going to make them look more like Statler and Waldorf the longer this trend continues.