Labeling, Certification, and Consumer Trust
Daftar Isi:
- Increased interest in ethical consumption has promoted the creation of incentives for product differentiation, which has been adopted by the market in terms of a variety of labels and certificates to describe a whole collection of product attributes related to health, social, or environmental sustainability. In this chapter, we describe and compare six coffee certifications in terms of their certification processes, governance mechanisms, and market penetration. Our comparison shows that leading certifications reassert their trustworthiness by emphasizing transparency, legitimacy, and accountability of their practices and governance processes. To demonstrate transparency, it is common that certification authorities openly publicize their standards and principles to demonstrate the transparency. To show legitimacy, they get accreditations from reputable national or international organization. Unfortunately, most of this information is not always at the reach of final consumers.