New Frontiers In Environmental And Social Labeling

This volume provides an in depth look at labeling and its relation to the governance of global trade. The book aims at bridging the research gaps related to the link between consumers’ perception of a label with their willingness to pay, the impact and the limitations of labeling in the event of food safety hazards, and the trade and development dimensions of labeling. As such, this volume opens a new frontier on issues related to the economics of labeling.

This collected volume analyses labelling as a political and economic operation. It gathers contributions that focus on various domains, including the agri-food sector, the construction sector, eco-labelling, retail, health public policies and the energy sector, considering the use of labels for various objectives, such as providing legal and technical data on consumption products, certifying their quality, and indicating the approval of professional or political authorities. These practices are tied to both public and private interventions that make civic concerns visible and aim to govern them. The book considers ‘labelling the economy’ as an operation that introduces political questions into the economic realm, while also importing economic modes of reasoning into governance interventions. In doing so, the book considers the sociotechnical apparatus on which any label relies as a nexus where economic and political considerations are brought together.

Formerly published by Chicago Business Press, now published by Sage Sustainable Marketing, Third Edition presents a sustainable marketing perspective that addresses financial and social performance as well as ecological performance, in consideration of the impact upon the environment in which markets operate. Authors Robert Dahlstrom and Jody L. Crosno incorporate state-of-the-art examples of business practice while delivering on a theoretically-based and managerially-relevant approach to sustainable marketing.

Political Consumerism captures the creative ways in which consumers and citizens turn to the market as their arena for politics. This book theorizes, describes, analyzes, compares, and evaluates how political consumers target corporations to solve globalized problems. It demonstrates the reconfiguration of civic engagement, political participation, and citizenship. Unlike other studies, this book also evaluates if and how consumer actions are or can become effective mechanisms of global change.

The current fossil fuel-based system of mobility is associated with a wide range of environmental and social problems. There is a growing body of literature on system innovations and transitions which has as a common understanding that long-term transformative change is necessary to deal with these complex problems. However, knowledge on the crucial role of citizen-consumers in sustainable mobility transitions is still underdeveloped. By incorporating the viewpoint of consumption patterns and everyday life routines, this book provides (new) knowledge on the role of citizen-consumers in sustainable mobility transitions. Theoretically, a practice based approach is developed as a novel framework to analyse, understand and influence transition processes to sustainable mobility at the level of everyday life. The focus in each of the three cases studies is on situated interactions between consumers and producers. Amongst these is an analysis of the role environmental information and subsidies in new car purchasing. Also, various examples in which an attempt was made to orchestrate a (modal) shift in commuting practices are examined. Each of the empirical case studies shows the important role of contextual factors in understanding and influencing mobility behaviour of citizen-consumers. In addition, this book helps to understand how and why innovation in mobility practices takes place or not.

The markets for organic and fair trade certified commodities are growing rapidly, with environmentally sound and more equitable certification systems likely to offer benefits for both small-scale farmers and society at large. Despite much debate about their contribution to sustainability, there has been little scientific analysis, so it is vital to assess if it is technically and economically feasible to meet growing consumer demands regarding food safety, quality and ethics through smallholder and marginal producers. Overall, there is a need to explore the potential of these certification systems as emerging areas in research and development cooperation. This book is an important read for researchers and students in agricultural and development economics, and it is also a useful resource for policy makers and practitioners involved in organic and fair trade agriculture.

This book presents the latest on the theoretical approach of the contemporary issues evolved in strategic marketing and the integration of theory and practice. It seeks to make advancements in the discipline by promoting strategic research and innovative activities in marketing. The book highlights the use of data analytics, intelligence and knowledge-based systems in this area. In the era of knowledge-based economy, marketing has a lot to gain from collecting and analyzing data associated with customers, business processes, market economics or even data related to social activities. The contributed chapters are concerned with using modern qualitative and quantitative techniques based on information technology used to manage and analyze business data, to discover hidden knowledge and to introduce intelligence into marketing processes. This allows for a focus on innovative applications in all aspects of marketing, of computerized technologies related to data analytics, predictive analytics and modeling, business intelligence and knowledge engineering, in order to demonstrate new ways of uncovering hidden knowledge and supporting marketing decisions with evidence-based intelligent tools. Among the topics covered include innovative tourism marketing strategies, marketing communications in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the use of business modeling, as well as reflecting on the marketing trends and outlook for all transportation industry segments. The papers in this proceedings has been written by scientists, researchers, practitioners and students that demonstrate a special orientation in strategic marketing, all of whom aspire to be ahead of the curve based on the pillars of innovation. This proceedings volume compiles their contributions to the field, highlighting the exchange of insights on strategic issues in the science of innovation marketing.

The utilization of natural resources to satisfy worldwide growing consumption of goods and services has severe ecological consequences. Aside from the projected doubling of food consumption in the next fifty years, the growing trade of biofuels and other commodities is a global challenge as the economic activities in the primary sector (i.e. mining, fisheries, aquaculture, forestry and agriculture) can damage biodiversity and ecosystem services. This should be taken into account in the decision-making affecting the global value chains linking consumer, retailer, processor, and producer in the North and the South. To cover the topic of ecosystem services and global trade this book is organized into four major parts. Part 1 gives the theoretical framework from an ecological, economic and political perspectives. Part 2 explores how internationally traded biophysical commodities from agriculture, forestry and fisheries translates into a virtual flow of land, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Part 3 describes how two widely used accounting tools (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment and Green National Accounts) deal with international aspects of ecosystem services, and Part 4 shows how instruments like labelling, bans, or payments for ecosystem services in the private and public sector can influence trade patterns and the management of ecosystem services. This collection is a valuable contribution to the global change science dealing with ecosystem services. It illustrates the consequences of international trade on global ecosystem services and provides an overview of accounting tools and of market-based policy instruments to address negative and positive externalities. The book is certainly innovative, because it brings together research findings from distinct disciplines especially Industrial Ecology and Ecosystem Sciences, as well as Environmental Economics and Political Science.