Wal-Mart’s recent announcement of its ‘Sustainability Index’ marks a positive step by one of the world’s biggest retailers.

Currently, the index rates Wal-Mart’s suppliers - rather than individual products – on a limited range of sustainability indicators, but the eventual aim is to arrive at a product labelling scheme.

Our research indicates that consumers with responsible attitudes usually don’t act on them, and that confusion about what responsible messages really mean may be an important reason for this. By eliminating the confusion, a transparent rating scheme could have a meaningful impact on consumer behaviour.

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Tags:  Wal-Mart Sustainability Index Retail Labelling Competitive advantage consumer engagement

In his recent series of Reith Lectures Professor Michael Sandel discusses what he terms ‘a politics of the common good’ as a reaction to the erosion of trust in the free-market system.

A politics of the common good is at the heart of Responsible Research’s mission.

In May 2009, Responsible Research conducted a major consumer research study to understand the role of responsible influences in grocery shopping. It may seem outlandish to bracket shopping with Sandel’s grand scheme for a ‘new kind of politics,’ but in fact the two are intimately connected.

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Tags:  Reith Lectures Trust Free market shopping politics consumers supermarkets responsible

A survey by the action on waste group WRAP last year reckons the average family household throws away more than a quarter of the food they buy and that 60 per cent of the dumped food was untouched.

As well as adding 3.6 million tonnes to UK landfill the wasted food had cost UK households around £10 billion. Most of the wasted food could have been eaten if better stored, better managed in terms of usage or not left uneaten on the plate.

More recently, the Change4Life campaign has been encouraging parents not to overload their children’s plates with supersize portions in an effort to combat obesity.

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Tags:  Responsible Food Waste Packaging