Making responsible consuming easy

Tonight I'm putting together an internal newsbrief that I write each week as my second job; it summarizes the CSR news for the staff of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship. I've been reading a New York Times article about how and why the public increasingly distrusts business ("New Surveys Show That Big Business Has a P.R. Problem"; New York Times; 12/9/05; by Claudia H. Deutsch).

In this article, there is a good back-and-forth with the opinion poll statistics and with company responses to them. The point made by many company officials: maybe consumers don't like us, but they are part of the problem. For example:
-- "They say that people who blame McDonald's for their obesity still order the large fries, and that those who complain about low wages still insist on low prices."
-- "'I don't see investors refusing to buy because they think the chief executive is overpaid, and I don't see union members boycotting nonunion stores that sell attractively priced foreign goods."
-- "Wal-Mart's own surveys, done at the behest of board members worried about the company's image, indicated that only 8 percent of consumers refused to shop at Wal-Mart because they were opposed to its practices."
These are good points. Consumers seem to care that businesses sometimes causes social ills, but they don't often research these issues thoroughly and use that information to influence their buying decisions. And how could they? How could each and every one of us spend hours researching every product we buy and finding alternatives that meet our values? In most people's opinions, I'm sure, it wouldn't be an efficient use of time.

So the question of the day is: How can we put society's values into action, without demanding that individuals spend inordinate amouts of time on their buying decisions. I think that the answer - or at least a large part of it - is in standard-setting and voluntary certification.

Already there are independent international labeling groups such as Fair Trade, Energy Star, the Forest Stewardship Council, and others. As individual organizations, they are not perfect. But they are working toward a system-wide solution. If each product category can have one or two trustworthy NGO's concentrating their resources on figuring out who the good companies are and which products are made in socially- and environmentally- reponsible ways, then indivual consumers can make choices within their values and within their schedules.

If there are any social entrepreneurs reading this who are looking for a way to make a big impact right now, I think that amazing contributions could be made by establishing more of these organizations, making them more credible, and advertising them to both consumers and suppliers.