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Towards Transparency? Analysing the Sustainability Governance Practices of Ethical Certification

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  • Helen Tregidga
  • Kate Kearins
  • Eva Collins

Abstract

Ethical certifications and their related labels are frequently seen as market solutions, but less often as sustainability governance regimes. Through an analytics of governmentality lens, we analyse two different ethical certification schemes operating within a single market. We question whether ethical certification and its related labelling can be relied upon to bring about ‘better’ transparency regarding the products offered from which various outcomes become possible – such as consumers making informed decisions, and various actors being able to hold companies to account. Consumer confusion, evident in our case study, calls into question ethical certification’s achievement of a reduction in informational asymmetries. Our findings also show how this confusion provided an opportunity for a non-government organisation and a government oversight body to ultimately call a company to account. Overall, we point to both the limits and potential of ethical certification as a wider sustainability governance regime by highlighting complexities associated with acts of both governing and being governed.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Tregidga & Kate Kearins & Eva Collins, 2019. "Towards Transparency? Analysing the Sustainability Governance Practices of Ethical Certification," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 44-69, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:seaccj:v:39:y:2019:i:1:p:44-69
    DOI: 10.1080/0969160X.2019.1568276
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    Cited by:

    1. Balzarova, Michaela & Dyer, Celia & Falta, Michael, 2022. "Perceptions of blockchain readiness for fairtrade programmes," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    2. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.

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