Consumers International launches bid for UN recognition of World Consumer Rights Day

This week at the UNCTAD Roundtable on the ‘UNGCP International

Framework for the Protection of Consumers’ I was delighted to announce that Consumers International is calling for World Consumer Rights Day to be formally recognised by the UN as an international day within the UN calendar.

World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is a fantastic annual celebration that unites consumers around the world. Now is the time for the UN to recognise this day formally and in doing so deliver even more to raise awareness of consumer rights.

For the last 33 years, consumer organisations around the world have joined together on March 15 to mark World Consumer Rights Day; a day that plays a vital role in raising awareness of consumer rights around the globe. The event is regularly marked in more than 90 countries around the world and a wide mix of consumers, consumer organisations, government consumer agencies and international organisations take part.

Formally recognising World Consumer Rights Day as an International Day as already exists for women, the environment, health, children, amongst many others, could help this important annual moment play an even more powerful role in raising awareness of consumer rights and highlighting inadequate consumer protection.

Given the historic adoption of the revised UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection that was achieved at the end of 2015, which recognised important new protections for consumers, there is now an urgent need to raise awareness of these protections for consumers around the globe.  UN recognition of World Consumer Rights Day can play a crucial part in this. At a time when Consumers International has unprecedented engagement from Consumer Protection Agencies around the world, we have an excellent opportunity to campaign for UN recognition for the most important day in the global consumer rights calendar.

World Consumer Rights Day

It is a truly international event. Previous themes for the day have included campaigns on basic rights, safe food, GMOs, trade, public utilities, healthy diets, financial services, phone rights, energy. The day is used to raise awareness of existing rights and shine a light on areas where there is inadequate consumer protection in place. Celebrated by the majority of countries around the world activities marking the day have included media stunts, public meetings, marches, social media campaigns and the publication of test results, surveys and opinion pieces.

The date itself was chosen to commemorate a Special Message to the US Congress made by President John F Kennedy in 1962 in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights. He was the first world leader to do so.

A global challenge

Despite this global celebration, we all know that many consumers still face real challenges in their everyday lives, from a lack of access or poor quality goods and services, as well as unfair practices. There is much more to be done to raise awareness of consumer rights amongst consumers, governments and business.

As President John F Kennedy said in his message to the US Congress in 1962,

'Consumers by definition, include us all. They are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Yet they are the only important group... whose views are often not heard.'

UN recognition for WCRD would be another step towards meeting the challenge that President Kennedy set out more than 50 years ago.

Official UN recognition

Official UN recognition can help to put consumer rights on the map of even more organisations, governments, companies and media outlets. It can help to raise awareness by engaging more people, in more activities, in more countries.

For our Members we expect it will make it more possible for them to get coverage of their activities and secure the participation of senior figures from government or business. It will also help to introduce consumer rights to new groups and help them realise the contribution that consumer rights can make to fairer and stronger economies, poverty reduction, improved health and safety and many other issues that affect people today.  At this time of promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals there is further justification for the need for UN recognition.

Achieving UN recognition requires the support of Member states at the UN General Assembly. But, with the adoption of the revised UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection – and the urgent need to raise awareness of these protections, alongside the promotion of the UN Sustainable development Goals and the quality of our engagement with national Consumer Protection Agencies, we feel we are in the best possible place to put World Consumer Rights Day on the UN map.

We are asking CI Members to contact their Regional Networker for more information on how to get involved.

UN Sustainable Development Goals and consumer protection: A shared 2030 Agenda

With the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals this weekend, the world will take an important step towards a more sustainable future. But the journey can be made so much easier with consumer protection as a companion, writes Consumers International's (CI) Director General Amanda Long.

On Friday, UN Member States will adopt an ambitious set of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals build on the work of the Millennium Development Goals, which focused on poverty eradication and fighting hunger, and will take a more inclusive, universal approach with the addition of new measures to reduce inequality, tackle climate change and environmental degradation, promote peace, prosperity and sustainable economic growth.

With slightly less fanfare, but no less significance to consumer organisations, the revised UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP) are also expected to be adopted by this year’s UN General Assembly. Consumers International have been at the heart of this revision process, working with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Member States to ensure they are both stronger and more relevant to consumers in today’s global marketplace.

I strongly believe that much more should be made of this opportunity to link these two important global agendas. Consumers are at the heart of many of the issues dealt with in the UN SDGs and it will be a missed opportunity not to use the UN Guidelines to promote consumer welfare, sustainable consumption and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  

People’s ability to consume, the consumption choices available to them and whether they are treated fairly as consumers, fundamentally affects the quality of their lives and of the environment around them. 

The UN SDGs’ ambition is commendable, but to meet this ambition, everyone needs to be on board. Consumers are the largest constituency in the economy and should not be ignored.

Consumer protection provides a clear means to curb inequalities and to promote fairness, justice and environmental protection in an increasingly complex global economy. 

It ensures that people everywhere are treated fairly and with dignity in the marketplace, and have access to safe, healthy, sustainable products and services. This is particularly important for poor and vulnerable people who are often the most exploited. 

There is still time and opportunity. Once the UN SDGs are formally adopted, policy makers’ attention will turn to getting their message across to the public, and to developing ways to measure their progress.

The public will gain a greater understanding of the UN SDGs if their rights as consumers are protected and promoted through the UN SDGs. And a number of the UN SDGs will be achieved far more effectively by including the implementation of the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection as an indicator to help measure progress towards the achievement of the UN SDGs.

UNEP, the UN Environment Programme, also recognises the UNGCP’s value and is calling for the same indicator to monitor progress on the UN SDG on sustainable consumption and production. But the UNGCP’s impact covers far more than simply helping people buy the most sustainable option available.

The UN SDGs’ objectives to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and promote shared prosperity, fundamentally rely on how consumers think and act, and how their opportunities, choices and rights are protected – in the developed and developing world.

The eight Millennium Development Goals made great progress in some areas, but fell short in others. The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals need to draw on everybody and every policy, to stand any chance of achieving their objectives by 2030. 

Consumer protection is an essential partner for this journey. Let’s not miss this opportunity. 

How consumer protection can help deliver the UN’s new vision of shared prosperity

The world will be missing a big opportunity if we don’t make greater links between consumer protection and sustainable development, explains CI Director General Amanda Long. 

This week, UN member states are coming together in New York to begin to define a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These will replace the UN’s influential Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will be launched in September 2015.

September will also see the final revision of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP), to make them more relevant to consumers in today’s global marketplace.

Consumers International believes a big opportunity will be missed, if we don’t make greater connections between consumer protection and sustainable development.

Despite consumers being at the heart of many of the issues dealt with in the SDGs, there is little or no mention of consumer protection. 

Consumer protection and empowerment should be recognised as central to sustainable development. It ensures that people everywhere are treated fairly and with dignity in the marketplace, and have access to safe and healthy products, and services. This is particularly important for poor and vulnerable people who are often amongst the most exploited.

Consumer protection and empowerment provides a clear means to curb inequalities and to promote fairness, justice and prosperity in an increasingly complex global economy.

To give just three examples of why consumer protection is important to the SDGs:

• Proposed Goal 2 aims to ‘End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition'. To achieve this, consumers need access to nutritious and affordable food which follows food safety standards.

• Proposed Goal 3 aims to ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages'. This means that consumers need access to healthcare but also protection against unsafe products and services that cause ill health, injury or death.

• Proposed Goal 8 calls for ‘sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth'. It is hard to see how this can be achieved unless consumers are represented and empowered to play their part in the economy. 

Similar points can be made in relation to almost every one of the proposed Goals.

The most effective way to make the link between consumer protection and the SDGs, is to make 

implementation of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection one of the targets in the SDGs.

This will provide real practical support for consumer protection:

• It will raise the profile of consumer protection with international and national organisations and agencies who have not previously seen it as part of their agenda.

• It will require the international community to measure and report on the implementation of the UN Guidelines on a regular basis.

This is why CI is calling for the UNGCP to be included under the proposed Goal on the ‘means of implementation and global partnership’, with the following truly cross-cutting target:

• By 2030 ensure all countries have implemented the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection. 

People’s ability to consume, the consumption choices available to them and whether they are treated fairly as consumers, fundamentally affects the quality of their lives and of the environment around them.

Clearly then, the SDGs’ objectives to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and promote shared prosperity, fundamentally rely on how consumers think and act, and how their opportunities and choices are protected – in the developed and developing world.

CI is looking forward to further engagement on a more inclusive and consumer-focused development agenda throughout this vital year – to help make shared prosperity a reality. 

Will consumer rights be at the heart of global sustainable development policy?

CI’s Head of Advocacy Justin Macmullan, outlines why the inclusion of consumer rights is fundamental for the future of sustainable development.

In 2015 the UN General Assembly has the task of agreeing a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will build on the momentum created by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Like the MDGs, the SDGs will represent a major international agreement and have the potential to influence development policy for years to come.

Good progress has already been made and a zero draft sets out seventeen goals with a number of targets under each.

But there is something missing. Consumer rights are not mentioned. CI believes this is a serious omission and we are campaigning for consumer rights to be put back into sustainable development.

The missing link

 

The zero draft does include a goal on Sustainable Consumption and Production (something CI has long campaigned for and strongly supports), however this is largely about supporting and promoting environmental and ethical consumption and, as important as this is, it doesn’t address the wide range of issues that consumers struggle with.

Apart from sustainable consumption and production, there are also many other goals and targets in the draft that consumer organisations would recognise and support – including poverty eradication, promoting an efficient and equitable economy, water, energy and health to name just a few.

Why consumer rights matter

The consumer perspective is important for two reasons.

Firstly consumer protection is fundamental to the implementation of many of the other goals that have been proposed and “implementation” is important. As we have seen with the Millennium Development Goals, it is one thing to develop a set of ambitious goals but it is another to deliver on them.

However consumer protection is also an important issue in its own right. Any full definition of sustainable development should include consumer protection.

After all, people’s ability to consume, the consumption choices they have available to them and whether they are treated fairly as consumers, fundamentally effects the quality of their lives and the lives of those around them.

To give just three examples of why consumer protection is important:

• The first of the proposed SDGs is to ‘End poverty everywhere'. To achieve this poor and vulnerable people need to be sure that they can spend and save their limited income safely, yet they are often amongst the most exploited in the marketplace.
• The third of the proposed SDGs calls for ‘Attaining healthy lives for all'. This means that consumers need access to healthcare but also protection against unsafe products and services that cause ill health, injury or death.
• The eighth of the proposed SDGs calls for 'Sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth'. It is hard to see how this can be achieved unless consumers are represented and empowered to play their part in the economy.

Similar points can be made in relation to almost every one of the proposed Goals.

Putting consumer rights back into sustainable development

 

For this reason Consumers International is campaigning for implementation of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection to be added as a target under the proposed goal relating to ‘inclusive societies and access to justice’ or ‘means of implementation’.

This is a practical and realistic proposal. The UN Guidelines are internationally agreed and they have proved their value over more than 30 years.

Through CI’s State of Consumer Protection report we have also demonstrated that it is possible to measure their implementation (though we look forward to seeing what more can be done in this area with the right resources).

The process of negotiating the SDGs is already well advanced, so please join CI’s call for consumer protection to be included in the SDGs by contacting your Minister for Foreign Affairs.

You can also watch my video message on these goals - feel free to share.

The big challenge to raise eco labelling awareness among consumers

Consumers keep saying they want food from their supermarket shelves to be sustainable - so why are so many not aware of the certification schemes which deliver eco-labels you can trust, asks Lara Koritzke, director of communications of the ISEAL Alliance.

I was running with a friend yesterday who began talking about how she bought a new brand of frozen salmon the week before and her daughter loved it.

She then lamented that she couldn’t serve it more often due to the mercury concentration in fish.

Rather than get into an entire discussion of mercury pollution and the concentrations in various species of fish (salmon, being lower on the food chain, tends to have lower levels), I instead steered the conversation towards suggesting to her that she begin looking for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification mark on her fish products.

I explained that products with the MSC label come from sustainably managed fisheries that minimize environmental impacts. My friend had never heard of MSC despite its appearance in most of our major grocery stores.

But this is not surprising. Studies by the MSC have shown that only 23% of consumers recognize its label.

Why should I care to change my friend’s seafood-buying habits?  Because I have worked for more than 15 years in the field of ecolabelling, currently serving as the Director of Communications for the ISEAL Alliance, the global membership association of sustainability standards and certification.

Many of our members including Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, Forest Stewardship Council and others have achieved double digit growth over the last few years.

However, despite increasing global recognition, legitimacy, and evidence of positive impacts, very few of these credible labels are actually recognised by consumers.
 
This should be a wake-up call to the certification movement. We need to better engage with consumer groups.

This is one of the reasons ISEAL has chosen this year to begin working more closely with Consumers International as a supporter. We know that consumers care about sustainability.

They want to make good choices. We also know that certification labels are generally not the first source of information for consumers to make those choices.

Consumers are instead going to social media, online reviews and ratings, blogs and friends.

However, with some of these vehicles, there remains the possibility of being swayed by good marketing, rather than good practice.

My organisation, ISEAL, was founded in 2002 and has become the global leader in defining credibility in sustainability standards and certification.

Our hope now is that certification will build increased trust with the consumer movement.

Certification programmes like those in ISEAL have decades of experience, science behind their standards, a robust multistakeholder process in setting standards and monitoring systems to make improvements.

They represent something deeper for all those “eco” products in the shopping cart. They represent impartial inspections and formal verifications of responsible practices. Their labels are carefully controlled and used in accordance to specialized traceability systems. 

In the next year ISEAL hopes to move a little closer to building formal trust and support for the consumer movement.

We will be unveiling a new tool that can help consumer groups have a deeper understanding of the huge range of sustainability claims and labels (some credible, some not) in the marketplace.

This will improve consumer knowledge and drive discussion about what makes a credible label.
This will include helping consumers know which questions to ask to find out what a claim or sustainability label truly means.

In the future and in our collaboration with Consumers International, we hope that the consumer voice will be in more levels of ISEAL’s work, where we design standards, where we test new standards, where we assess our impacts. We are looking forward to it.

For more information on ISEAL and to watch a 2 minute video on what is important in determining the credibility of claims and labels visit our website.

Trust, not green marketing, is key to driving sustainable consumption

CI's Head of Communications Luke Upchurch asks 'As consumers increasingly turn to one another for information, could green marketing campaigns be a thing of the past?'

One of the reasons mainstream consumers do not go weak at the knees for sustainable consumption is the perception of an elephant-sized contradiction at its heart. To most people, consumption means buying more stuff; buying more stuff means making more things; and making more things means unsustainable consumption.

This is not about an inability to grasp the idea: you can explain proven, high-impact sustainable consumption to people on the street and they will understand the benefits put before them. This is about instinct – a feeling that sustainable consumption is just not possible. It's an oxymoron. It's a big marketing fib.

It appears that businesses can do little to shift this current intransigence, with consumer mistrust of corporate sustainability claims the norm. Little wonder, then, that sustainability struggles to move beyond a niche of conscientious consumers and committed companies.

The situation is made more complex by the digital explosion of user-generated content and many-to-many communications. We've all heard how Twitter, Facebook and the like can sink a product range, skew a brand image or defile a corporation in a matter of minutes. It can take just one disreputable supplier, one perceived piece of hypocrisy, or one unintended consequence, and millions of dollars worth of marketing spend goes up in the air. Consumers feed on this background noise when framing opinions about the green and ethical claims made by large companies.

So it is perhaps no wonder that marketing professionals and communications experts bemoan the consumers' lack of enduring interest in sustainable consumption. Perhaps this is simply a behavioural nudge too far. Or, perhaps, the catalyst for change lies elsewhere.

Consumers are increasingly turning to each other for trusted information on a whole range of issues. This, however, is happening outside the influence of corporate communications. It is happening between individuals and the people they trust: friends, family, other users, and consumer organisations. This is creating a heady mixture of influencing agents that range from anecdotal evidence to personal experiences to third-party assurance; and it appears corporations have little direct say in the matter.

Tripadvisor, Disqus and Reevoo are all offering consumers the opportunity to share opinion and weigh up the trustworthiness of corporate claims. As Consumer Focus (now Consumer Futures) indicated in its excellent report, In my honest opinion: Consumers and the power of online feedback, 88% of UK consumers consult user reviews before making a purchase.

Of course, such a shift in consumer decision-making is not confined to perceptions of sustainability claims – but sustainable consumption arguably has the biggest hill to climb. The tightening of disposable incomes, the mainstream media's general scepticism about climate change and the mistrust of corporate claims all contribute to an unfavourable environment for changing behaviour  in this area.

Of all these challenges, the issue of trust is the one most open to change in the short term. Companies can alter the public perception about green claims, but it takes coherent, consistent efforts across the business and the supply chain. Third-party certification schemes, and rigorous CSR and sustainability standards such as ISO 26000 or the ISEAL codes are also important foundations that can begin to change the background noise and chip away at the scepticism.

Corporations should stop worrying about the message and focus on mainstreaming sustainability through their business and suppliers, while being totally open about the progress, successes and failures. In a world that increasingly demands instant communications, open data and total transparency, this is the closest one can get to guaranteeing a positive foundation for convincing consumers that sustainable consumption is not one big fib.

What a wonderfully simple irony: companies need to be geared up and running sustainable businesses before they can expect consumers to believe that they are sustainable. Which is exactly as it should be.

This blog first appeared on The Guardian website.

How not to spark a paradigm shift to sustainable consumption

CI's Luke Upchurch on why bottled water can never be sustainable

Business leaders often lay responsibility for the failure of sustainable consumption to go mainstream at the feet of consumers: "They don't understand what it means." Well, they're wrong. The world's consumers do understand what it means; it's just not what many in business understand it to be.

If we're going to get the paradigm shift that everyone is so eager to see, we need to start by focusing on the things that really matter. To understand what I mean, let me tell you the story of Icelandic Glacial.

Icelandic Glacial is a bottled water available in the UK, US, Canada and several other countries. It markets itself as the world's first carbon-neutral bottled water. Its processing plant, situated on Iceland's Olfus spring, runs on hydroelectric and geothermal energy. Its packaging is 100% recyclable and, to reduce CO2, it's even shipped from Iceland in the unused space of cargo ships that would have otherwise remained empty.

Icelandic Glacial has received sustainable certification for both the product and its processing. In 2007, it won the Bottle Water World design award for sustainability. It's even been certified by the Carbon Neutral company – the seal of approval for which takes centre stage on the bottle's label.
Many of you reading this will already be pondering the irony of a sustainable bottled water company tapping the very glaciers we need to preserve to survive – but give Icelandic Glacial some credit. In every sense this can be recognised as a sustainable product: it's recyclable, third-party certified, and CO2 neutral.

Yet this is not a sustainable solution. This is not what sustainability means to the consumer movement. Unfortunately for Icelandic Glacial – which appears genuine in its efforts – this bottled water represents the very antithesis of what sustainability means.

Meaningful sustainability for consumers cannot be captured on a label or celebrated with an industry award. Meaningful sustainability – the type of stuff that spurs paradigm shifts and reverses global trajectories – is about how we provide safe and sustainable drinking water for all, including the one billion consumers who currently have no access to it.

We cannot seriously talk about consumers not understanding or caring about sustainability and not consider the millions of consumers in the developing world without piped water, who are given no choice but to buy bottled alternatives at up to 10 times the price. That is what unsustainable consumption looks like.

The challenge is how we meet this consumer right to the satisfaction of basic needs in a sustainable way – in terms of access, quality, and affordability – as well as environmental impact. This is what the overwhelming majority of the world's consumers understand sustainability to be about.
Icelandic Glacial may have all the sustainability credentials the company could think of. It may well be a sustainable product in its own right. But it embodies the problem, not the solution, when it comes to sustainable living.

Sustainable consumption is about much more than marketing: much more than niche product lines, and, indeed, the polar opposite of fresh water bottled and sold at a huge mark up.
It's about creating accessible and stable markets that offer low-environmental impact, good quality products at a fair price, whether it is water, healthcare, food, financial services, or even access to the internet. Some pioneers in industry get that, but most can't see beyond the label.

So, how do we make the paradigm shift? Put bluntly, stop obsessing about the marketing strategy and CSR brochure and focus on the big meaningful changes that create a sustainable business regardless of consumer demand.

After all, sustainability is about meeting consumer needs, not creating consumer wants.

This article first appeared on the Guardian website.

The planet needs a silver-bullet solution, but Rio wasn’t it

CI’s Luis Flores reflects on the results of the Rio+20 Summit and what they mean for consumers.

Trying to solve the world’s most pressing and complex environmental and social problems by convening the very governments stuck in gridlock the last 20 years was never going to be a silver-bullet solution.

And after Rio+20 it is clear that an old-style UN conference with member countries negotiating a ‘consensus’ agreement is no longer the ideal medium for change.

However, despite the initial dismay over the results of the Summit, there was cause for at least a somewhat sedated celebration for the consumer rights movement.

First, sustainable consumption and production (SCP) was acknowledged as a fundamental issue. The so-called 'ten year framework of programmes' that will support governments developing national and regional programmes on SCP was also endorsed by governments on a voluntary basis.

It will be further developed in this year's negotiations at the UN General Assembly. The Rio agreement also specifically links sustainable consumption to the Sustainable Development Goals which will be the subject of more work under the UN framework.

Determined to avoid another Copenhagen and an evident failure of the environmental multilateral system, the government negotiators at Rio+20 wanted above all to be able to come out with a completed agreement and that is exactly what they did at the end of the process.

But, given the results and the lack of ambition of the official outcome document, which had been negotiated over the last nine months and finalised just before the start of the Summit, many were unhappy.

It is not necessary to understand the economics of development in great detail to have a view on the case for urgent action. Sustainability is needed now.

The question is no longer whether unsustainable growth is contributing to the global crisis or not, but how vast and irreversible the damages are going to be.

In the coming years, the entire world will have to step into a transition stage leading to real sustainable development; therefore, joint and coordinated action is necessary.

Isolated initiatives will not be enough, and neither will the sustainable purchasing decisions of the enlightened few. Governments will need to act; and companies will need to stop hiding behind perceived consumer inertia as an excuse for inaction.

International cooperation will have to put less emphasis on what a fair distribution of responsibilities should be, and more stress on the actions that – if undertaken as a joint endeavour – will neutralize negative effects on people’s lives and livelihood.

All of the public awareness that we have experienced recently should give us enough hope to continue with our efforts. Indeed, when surveyed, an increasing number of consumers express a desire to consume ‘green’ – but lack the access to do so.

For our part, CI is currently reviewing our work on sustainable consumption in order to identify where we, as a network of more than 240 consumer organisations in 115 countries, can best contribute to this global challenge. We hope to have the results in time for a renewed effort at the start of 2013.

Supermarket investigation reveals a false choice

Zoya Sheftalovich and Elise Dalley of CHOICE, Australia, discuss the pressure that big supermarkets place on their suppliers – and what this means for consumers. 

Australia has a highly-concentrated supermarket sector. Our two big players, Coles and Woolworths, control more than 70% of the market. 

Anecdotally, CHOICE had been hearing for a while that relationships between the supermarkets and their suppliers and manufacturers were strained. People were ringing us to complain of their favourite products disappearing from supermarkets, and we became aware of a trend – seemingly successful product lines were being squeezed off the shelves by home brand products.

As a consumer watchdog, there was some reticence in the office about us looking into these reports – surely supermarkets increasing their home brand product lines would be beneficial to consumers, as long as these cheaper products provided good value and quality for consumers. But our members were increasingly upset, and we knew we had to investigate.

Extreme tactics

After asking our members to tell us about products they had noticed disappearing off the shelves, we compiled a list of dozens. We then got on the phone, calling manufacturers for several days.

We heard the same story again and again: yes, product lines had been deleted, with little or no notice, and for seemingly no reason. Yes, tactics leading up to the deletion had been extreme. No, I won’t go on the record. No, I can’t talk to you in more detail. No, you can’t use my name. I need the supermarkets, and I cannot afford to antagonise them.

And it was not just small manufacturers that were feeling the pain. Several large-scale operators spoke obliquely about the harsh Australian grocery market, but clammed up when it came to giving details.

But perseverance paid off, and several sources finally agreed to tell us their stories off the record. One even agreed to have his name put to his allegations.

What we heard was terrible in its implications for manufacturers and suppliers, but was also detrimental to consumers – the supermarkets seemingly had no qualms about using their buying power to push suppliers to the brink, and the number of people we spoke to who were either on the precipice of losing their businesses, or had already done so, was frightening. The competition from the supermarkets was wiping out the competition altogether.

Worrying signs

From demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for marketing, to setting unrealistic sales targets, to hiding products behind vertical columns in store and releasing their own, home brand products in deceptively similar packaging, the tactics used by the supermarkets were worrying.

Was this what consumers wanted? We didn’t think so.

When we published our series of investigations looking at the situation on the shelves, the copycat tactics of home brand products, and the emerging issue of incognito home brand wine, the response was resounding. We received messages of support from a huge number of our members.

And over a thousand people voted in our poll for the best (or is it worst?) copycat product. The winner?  Coles home brand sunscreen, which came in a tube that looked uncannily like the one put out by Australia’s national cancer NGO, the Cancer Council, the proceeds of which go to cancer research.

When two supermarkets control such a large share of the grocery market, no product is safe, and the consumer is not always king.

You can read the full details of our supermarket investigation here: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/food-and-drink/supermarkets

Global economic crisis deniers?

CI’s Jeremy Malcolm reports from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development where the world’s leading industrialised economies are attempting to re-write history.

The financial crisis that struck in 2008 ushered in the first contraction in the global economy since the 1930s. Its effects spread very rapidly and widely. The world’s poorest economies were not spared. Despite the policy efforts of leading economies, both developed and developing, the global economy remains fragile.
 
None of the above seems very controversial, does it?  The paragraph could well have been taken from Wikipedia or from a report in a respected newspaper or magazine.
 
As a matter of fact, it is an almost exact quotation from the draft negotiating text for the 13th Quadrennial Conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Doha, Qatar this week.
 
Yet UN members can't agree on it. In fact, shockingly, the world's leading industrialised economies want to erase each and every reference to the global economic and financial crisis from the text - as if making believe that it never happened.
 
The same rich countries are also refusing to agree to include references to:

• Energy price volatility and access to renewable energy;
• Access to medicine at affordable prices;
• Environmentally-compatible patterns of production and consumption that safeguard the biosphere;
• Adequate regulation and supervision of financial markets; and
• That foreign investors should comply with the domestic legislative framework of host countries, such as consumer protection law.

Perhaps even worse, they are seeking to restrict UNCTAD, with its unique development perspective, from dealing with these issues, claiming that such issues should instead be reserved for the pro-globalisation organs such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
 
This prompted an unprecedented open letter of protest from 49 former UNCTAD staff members earlier this month, and has created an atmosphere of high tension in the intergovernmental negotiations which are ongoing this week.
 
In partnership with other civil society groups from around the world, CI is in Doha to fight back against this shameful intransigence of the world's rich economies.
 
We are doing this in two ways: first, by talking to the delegates themselves, and pointing out how their denial of the world's food, energy, climate, financial and development crises is a slap in the face of the world's most disadvantaged consumers.
 
Second, resigned to the fact that the intergovernmental text may end up as a weak compromise, civil society groups including CI have drafted their own Civil Society Declaration and are presenting it this week.
 
In that declaration, CI confronts head-on the issues that are too difficult for governments to face. The declaration includes the following paragraph on the topic of consumer protection (for which UNCTAD is the lead agency within the UN system):
 
UNCTAD should promote consumer rights as part of its mandate over competition and consumer protection issues. Consumers have rights to the satisfaction of basic needs, to safety, to choice, to redress, to information, to consumer education, to representation, and to a healthy environment. It should lead the revision of the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection in light of recent trends including the increased exposure of consumers to new products and marketing strategies, increased cross-border commerce in consumer products, and technological changes that affect consumers. 

UNCTAD and CI have a long record of working together to advance the rights of consumers, and this will continue despite the attacks from rich countries that UNCTAD is currently enduring.

 

Its mission to maximise the trade, investment and development opportunities of poor countries fits in well with CI's mission to advance the rights of consumers worldwide. In particular, we will be participating in an UNCTAD meeting to discuss the revision of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection this July.

 

To find out the ultimate outcome of the negotiations in Doha, or for more information on CI's work at UNCTAD, you can follow CI delegate Jeremy Malcolm's private Twitter account, @qirtaiba, or email him at jeremy@ciroap.org.

As Rio+20 approaches, governments weigh the benefits of two paths to sustainability

CI’s Luis Flores, who coordinates our role as Organising Partner for NGOs within the Rio+20 process, looks at potential outcomes of the complex debate on sustainable consumption

There is general agreement among governments of the urgent need to address the current unsustainable patterns of development. However, as the international negotiation process continues towards the Rio+20 Earth Summit, there is little agreement on how to do it.

In terms of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) – the issues that most concern consumer rights groups – the Rio+20 negotiations are currently considering two approaches, but neither of them is sufficiently compelling at present.

First is the  ten-year framework of programmes (10YFP) on SCP.  This already has backing at the UN and could well lead to the creation of a specific international process to deliver sustainable consumption. It currently commands an explicit reference (paragraph 97) within the draft Rio agreement: ‘The Future We Want’.

Second is a ‘global pact’ on SCP. This would promote dialogue and collaboration in the exchange of information, knowledge and skills in support of a range of initiatives to accelerate SCP, including the UN Environment Programme’s regional work on SCP.

A ‘global pact’ sounds good, but it’s likely to be more of a political statement that – at this stage – still lacks specific content.

CI supports the adoption of the 10YFP at Rio, but inclusion in the final text alone will not guarantee its implementation.

So, what to do?

This was CI’s key question as governments resumed negotiations on the outcome document for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD or Rio+20) during meetings at the UN Headquarters in New York in March.

  

It is possible that both options could be adopted. But this would be a best-case scenario.

There is still a danger that the ‘global pact’ could turn in to a means for avoiding real institutional engagement around SCP and thus hamper the endorsement of the 10YFP at the Rio summit. 

At this stage there are still too many questions unresolved and too many issues to get a clear sense of which of these two alternatives would address SCP in a more effective manner, ensuring real and concrete sustainable solutions to the many problems that we face today. 

We will have to wait for a second round of negotiations, taking place at the UN in New York from 23 April to 4 May, in order to asses which will be the best way forward.

Either way, governments should be able to take a step forward on SCP at Rio. They need to deliver a clear and concrete framework for action for all stakeholders – be it the 10YFP or the ‘global pact’ on SCP. 

This could involve new work on the links between production and consumption and its impacts on people’s health and the environment; delivering more and better information for decision making.

All slow, but concrete actions towards sustainability. 

CI is a UN Organizing Partner for the major group of NGOS in the Rio+20 process. There are nine UN major groups in total: Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous People, Non-governmental Organizations, Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Communities, Farmers and Small Forest Landowners. CI shares its role with The Northern Alliance for Sustainability and the World Alliance for Citizen Participation.

Consumers can make a difference to conditions in the banana trade

Eliana Guarnoni of CI’s Italian member organisation Altroconsumo explores the production conditions behind the world’s most popular fruit.

Bananas are the world’s most popular and internationally-traded fruit. The industry is an important source of employment and income for millions of people in developing countries, but all too often is associated with negative economic, social and environmental impacts.

With more and more of us concerned about the story behind the food we buy, consumer rights groups are increasingly looking at the ethics of the tropical fruit trade.  CI recently examined conditions within the pineapple supply chain, and this has led us to take a closer look at the altogether bigger banana trade.

The World Banana Forum (WBF) is the centre for action on this issue. It is a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to improve conditions within the banana supply chain by bringing together producers, retailers, trade unions, NGOs, academics and exporters to share good practice and come up with solutions to the most urgent problems.

Working conditions

While attending the Second Conference of the WBF in Ecuador, I visited banana plantations in El Oro and Los Rios. It was particularly interesting to learn about the intensive use of chemicals in both the plantations and the packing areas.

Workers and the local communities surrounding the plantations have reported increasing levels of disease and believe that these chemicals are responsible.

Specifically, they say a lack of protective equipment and inadequate measures to prevent contamination in surrounding areas are to blame.

Discussing strategies to reduce the negative impact of chemicals on human beings and the environment is a top WBF priority, and in El Oro and Los Rios it was clear to see why.

But chemicals aren’t the only thing that poses a health risk on a banana plantation. The weight of a bunch of bananas is around 40 kilos. Workers in the packing area are required to move hundreds of banana boxes (each weighing 18 kilos) every day.

But workers are paid a piece-rate and in many cases they cannot earn enough to satisfy their family’s basic needs, even if they work 12 hours a day.

Women on the banana plantation

I also attended a meeting focusing specifically on conditions for female workers. Around 30 women from morethan 15 countries shared their views and experiences. It was striking to see how many of the issues facing women are common across borders.  

For example, women find it more difficult than men to get hired by banana producers – even though they could be easily employed in the washing area – and are often dismissed when they get pregnant. Challenges like this make it much harder for women in the major banana-exporting countries to make a significant contribution to their family’s livelihood.

The role of consumers

It was not uncommon to hear consumers used as an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for making real improvements to supply chain conditions.

One of the most recurrent arguments is that increased costs translate into higher prices for consumers, which, in turn, causes demand to decrease so that in the end nobody benefits.

But, in fact, studies conducted in several EU countries show that a significant proportion of consumers are ready to pay more for more sustainable products.

In any case, the price increase is often negligible. It is estimated that plantation workers only receive around 3%-4% of the final retail price paid by consumers.

Raising this share to 5% would mean either asking consumers to pay 0.05 Euros more per kilo or requiring companies and supermarkets to decrease their profits by 1%.

Consumers as a key stakeholder

WBF demonstrated to me that taking part in multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a useful strategy for consumer organisations.

It is clear that the consumer voice – which is so often missing in platforms like this – is very much respected and appreciated by other stakeholders.

WBF also shows how multi-stakeholder initiatives can be a really effective way to focus on the most relevant and urgent issues in a specific sector and to improve the research methodologies used by consumer organisations.

It is also important to demonstrate to other key stakeholders – whether its producers, exporters, trade unions, supermarket chains, intergovernmental organisations, research institutions or NGOs –  that consumer groups are monitoring how products bought by consumers are produced.

This scrutiny can play a vital part in bringing about better conditions in production and trade, while at the same time fostering constructive partnerships between stakeholders to achieve common goals.