1.8.6 Providing product information to consumers

Information about a company and the way in which it runs its operations is useful for investors, financiers and other parties directly involved and impacted, such as employees. Consumers, however, are less interested in overall strategies, and are more concerned about whether a product has been produced in a sustainable way and can likewise be disposed of. They expect a ' good' company to sell responsibly produced products.1 As indicated by consumer representative organisations and NGOs, consumers prefer to find this type of information on the product itself (through labelling or certification) or on a company's website. It concerns information regarding the production methods of the company and its suppliers: has the company assured itself that no child labour or forced labour was used in the making of this product? Has the production of the product not violated any human rights? What about animal rights? Can the company confirm that no illegal timber has been used to make this table, and that no insecticides were utilised to produce this organically labelled cucumber? Halal consumers want to know whether the animal has been killed in the traditional way facing Mecca?

Companies are anticipating these questions in different ways. Some elect to only sell certified products such as FSC timber, MSC fish, Utz certified coffee and chocolate, and Demeter milk and eggs. For them it is easy to answer the consumers' questions: they can refer either to the website or to the organisation that manages the certification process, or they can respond with information obtained from the labelling organisation. Typically, to acquire such a certificate, the producer has to assess its suppliers and assure transparent working methods. Consequently, information is usually readily available.

An interesting question is whether companies are more easily encouraged to set up internal systems to answer consumer questions about products when they are legally required to do so. Chapter 8 acquaints the reader with EU legislation that requires companies to disclose information concerning food, fish, tobacco and chemical products. For certain products, the company must provide detailed product information to the relevant authorities, in other cases, directly to consumers. For example, the EU REACH Regulation on chemicals demands that producers and importers in the EU provide consumers, at their request, with information about certain dangerous chemicals that may be contained in their products. To illustrate this, chapter 8 presents the results of a test requesting each of 32 MNCs based in the Netherlands whether a certain product sold by it contains any of the chemicals included in the REACH Regulation. Approximately 52 per cent replied within the permitted time; only 27.5 per cent gave a clear answer. A similar test was carried out by approaching the same companies in relation to the same product with three questions concerning CSR aspects of the production process. Only 38 per cent replied within the same time span, and of that 38 per cent only 17 per cent provided a full answer. Apparently, without a legal obligation, to do so it generally appears difficult for companies to allocate time to answer consumers' queries in relation to CSR concerns. Interestingly, in the Netherlands, Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Labour Party are preparing a legislative proposal on a consumer's right to request information regarding a product in respect of CSR.2