Scanning the Scores for Labels of Love

There is a revolution in the consciousness of consumers that is transforming the way each of us shops. It is not just that more of us are doing it on the Internet, nor that there is an infinitely wider array of companies and products to choose from. The revolution is in what we know about what we buy. Conscious consumers are building markets for conscious businesses, and this is transforming the very nature of what it means to do business.

Consider the nutritional labelling of foods. These labels may seem as timelessly present to us today as, say the ubiquitous cell phones and Internet. But it was not until 1990 that the FDA mandated the labelling of nutritional information on food packages with 1990 Nutrition Labelling and Education Act. The law did not go into effect until May 8, 1994. Since that time we have experienced a revolution in the health food industry which only seems to grow stronger with each increase in consumer consciousness. The more we measure, the more things will count.

Almost two decades since the passage of the 1990 Nutritional Labelling Act, the Internet has taken over where the FDA left off. Every passing month seems to bring with it the appearance of another website dedicated to ranking and reviewing products - http://www.ethiscore.com/, http://www.huddler.com/, and yours truly, http://www.visionaryvalues.com/, still in our infancy. Most focus on the social and environmental responsibility of products. And most span across multiple industries. These sites promise to radically transform the way each of us shops.

Like the early nutritional labels, it may be only a small percentage of shoppers who use these sites. But a measly 3% of shoppers is enough to create a substantial market for new products in most industries. And those same 3% can be enough to stain the reputation of habitual green washers. It may be the case that 2 or 3 or 5% of shoppers create not only a base for new products but for new shopping habits as well.

Someday, many of us will shop the aisles of our favorite stores with Blackberries and iPhones in hand, looking up, perhaps scanning, the social and environmental scores of new products in the same we we now read the reviews of books on Amazon or count the stars on Netflix films. Nutritional labels are only the start. Next will come environmental and labor scores, personalized scores according to our values, and ecological impacts. The sites are being developed along with the habits to use them. The question is: how many of us will be doing this, and how will it transform industry?