Choice Editing, Climate Change, and Consumers

A recent report by Accountability and Consumers International, “What Assures Consumers on Climate Change,” addresses some issues that have been floating around regarding consumer action and climate change. Namely, that while consumers are aware of climate change and want to do something about it, they remain confused about what they can do about it.

Strikingly, the research found that while consumers want more information from businesses about the climate impacts of their products, consumers do not trust information from businesses on climate change.  There is not a shortage of messages; just a shortage of trusted ones.

Perhaps consumers are suffering from label fatigue, or perhaps they are confused when labels seem to contradict each other (fair-trade versus buy-local?). This tees up one of the most important ideas to come out of the report: Choice Editing.

Choice editing is similar in concept to ethical investing: it simplifies things for the consumer. A store that choice-edits makes it easy for consumers because they can trust all of the products they have to choose from. Some retailers are picking up the concept already. Co-op Supermarkets only offer the highest energy efficiency appliances, and Marks and Spencer only offers free-range eggs.  The message is simple: don’t look at the product label; look at the retail brand.

Coming to your store soon

Could this also be the future for climate-friendly consumerism? How it will all play out remains to be seen. But choice-editing might go a lot farther than just slapping another label on every product sold.

But one also has to ask: is concern about climate change really strong enough to convince the mainstream high-street shopper to turn his or her back on the cult of consumer choice?  Are we ready for stores to tell us what is right and wrong?  If this continues, it will not be long before governments get involved…