WHY DO WE NEED THE CCC?

There is a rapidly moving trend towards certification programs that certify to the consumer that the product he/she is buying is made according to globally accepted labor standards, is not detrimental to the environment, is pesticide free, is not genetically modified, etc. This trend is largely being driven by consumers and in turn by responsive retailers who have noticed that consumers are willing to pay more for products that fulfill certification requirements.

There are a number of reasons a certification program that addresses concerns about labor standards, use of pesticides, environmental conditions, etc, is both desirable and probably inevitable given industry trends.

1. Product differentiation and the creation of more profitable product lines for producers, shippers, importers, roasters, and retailers
2. The development of industries that from a social policy perspective are making a “difference” in developing countries for workers, the environment, etc., which is something that many consumers are demanding and from a PR perspective is useful to any industry
3. Prevent negative press and the subsequent drop in sales that may some day come from a news report or expose about how “the cashews that you eat are really produced” as we have seen over and over with so many other industries such as apparel; remember the accusations against Kathy Lee Gifford and P Diddy over conditions in their apparel plants in Central America, shrimp farming, animal furs, furniture (with mahogany tree depredation in the Amazon jungle), etc, etc.

Various Industry Examples:

Consumer demand and politics have been driving factors in the development of the WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production) program by the textile and apparel industry, please see the following link: http://www.wrapapparel.org
There is also a new program that certifies that the fish you buy at the supermarket is being fished in an environmentally friendly manner and is not leading to the depletion of that species. This program is known as the Marine Stewardship Council certification – see: www.msc.org and the World Wildlife Fund had a big role in its development. Some of the biggest price conscious retailers including Costco, Wal-Mart, Compass Group USA, Metro Group – Germany, and Whole Foods are beginning to require MSC certification for various seafood products that they sell. There is even a scorecard for various species developed by the Blue Ocean Institute in collaboration with MSC, that tells consumers which fish species it can consume a manner that is sensitive to the preservation of the species and is harvested in an eco-friendly manner, please take a look at: http://blueocean.org/seafood/