About this Research Topic
Recently, different international and national strategies and policies, including standards, labels and certifications to assess the sustainability of products and organizations, have been developed and adopted. They support innovation and create markets for products by overcoming perceived uncertainty about the products’ properties and communicating their benefits. Standards can play an important role in enabling the existing regulatory system to adapt and support innovation. A label is given as a result of a certification process, which communicates compliance with predefined sustainability requirements. Labels are an essential vehicle to communicate products to consumers, especially if predefined sustainability criteria are met and verified by means of a certification process. They provide information on product characteristics and features that would otherwise remain unobservable or difficult to assess. This is especially true for product attributes that consumers cannot evaluate, such as the environmental impact of production methods. But if it is true that certifications are communication tools, their added value consists in improving the performance of companies.
Sustainability is an opportunity for the company to improve competitiveness. Customers and consumers want to guarantee that purchased products originate in sustainable environment and different studies have concerned the perception that consumers have of standards in terms of sustainability and their use as communication tools for companies. A field of investigation still to be explored concerns the impact that the certifications really have in terms of corporate sustainability. In particular, does certification improve and how much does it actually improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of a company?
The aim of the current Research Topic is to cover recent and novel research trends in the certification field for products and organizations. In particular, studies relating to the impact of the various certifications on corporate sustainability. Areas to be covered in this research topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Responsible consumption and production;
• Environmental Management Systems;
• ISO 14001 standard and sustainability;
• Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) standard and sustainability;
• Environmental labels (e.g. Environmental Product Declarations; Buy Clean California Act)
• Food labels;
• Communication tools for Corporate Social Responsibilities (e.g. Environmental reports, AccountAbility 1000, Global Reporting Initiative, ISO 26000);
• Ethical Management Systems (SA 8000, ISO 45001);
• Food Management Systems.
Sustainability is an opportunity for the company to improve competitiveness. Customers and consumers want to guarantee that purchased products originate in sustainable environment and different studies have concerned the perception that consumers have of standards in terms of sustainability and their use as communication tools for companies. A field of investigation still to be explored concerns the impact that the certifications really have in terms of corporate sustainability. In particular, does certification improve and how much does it actually improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of a company?
The aim of the current Research Topic is to cover recent and novel research trends in the certification field for products and organizations. In particular, studies relating to the impact of the various certifications on corporate sustainability. Areas to be covered in this research topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Responsible consumption and production;
• Environmental Management Systems;
• ISO 14001 standard and sustainability;
• Eco Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) standard and sustainability;
• Environmental labels (e.g. Environmental Product Declarations; Buy Clean California Act)
• Food labels;
• Communication tools for Corporate Social Responsibilities (e.g. Environmental reports, AccountAbility 1000, Global Reporting Initiative, ISO 26000);
• Ethical Management Systems (SA 8000, ISO 45001);
• Food Management Systems.
Keywords: Sustainability, standards, corporate performance, labels, product, process
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