ECOLABELS: INFORMING OR CONFUSING CUSTOMERS ? EVIDENCES FROM THE AGRIFOOD SECTOR

In the last decades, the proliferation of labels signalling the „green” features of the products – the so-called ecolabels- has been evident. Ecolabels are a voluntary cue that private and public organizations, in particular retail companies, use to give expression to their social, environmental, and ethical attitude, exceeding acquiescence to law. Ecolabels fall under the wider umbrella of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies. However, scepticism taints the full accreditation of ecolabels, as the menace of greenwashing raises consumers’ distrust. Analysing the roots of such scepticism, a central element to take into account is the confusion generated by ecolabels proliferation. The high number of these hampers a clear comprehension and trust building in the consumers’ mind. In particular, it is not clear whether ecolabels convey valuable information or not, that is information able to change the perceived features of a product. The aim of this work is to investigate (1) to what extent consumers pay attention to ecolabels, considering them in their purchasing process, and (2) whether ecolabels add incremental informational value to popular brands, altering customers’ perception of a product main features. We focus the attention on the agri-food sector, as it feats a high number of ecolabels thus offering an ideal setting their influence on customers’ purchasing behaviours. The method of analysis is based on a survey, directly administered to a random sample of customers. A factor analysis is run to build homogeneous clusters of customers, according to the impact that ecolabels have on their purchasing habits.