Aandachtig Aangekleed

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to define the factors that determine the effectiveness of Ecolabels. Ecolabels are considered an important instrument for environmentally friendly production and consumption. The relevance of this paper is devoted to the fact that there is an increasing amount of Ecolabels intruding the market sphere, good as well as bad funded, which leads to an overload of information for consumers. This overload decreases the effectiveness of Ecolabels, for consumers are lacking the right knowledge to make a well-funded decision. This paper analyses the effectivitiveness of garment Ecolabels through a literature review and a small scale case study on EU Ecolabel and Fairtrade (Max Havelaar) clothing. For both labels six distinctive conditions for effectiviteness are analysed: (1) Independence (1a) Inclusiveness and (1b) Control; (2) Magnitude (2a) Production (2b) Consumption, (3) Influence and (4) Scientific Validity. Concluding it can be said that both Ecolabels, EU Ecolabel and Fairtrade (Max Havelaar) clothing, are not entirely effective. This means that via the conditions it is still hard to say on what grounds a garment Ecolabel can be evaluated as effective. Nevertheless, this researh poses a new frame-work in the academic literature for analysing the effectiveness of garment Ecolabels in which the conditions can be used as start for further research.