Accounting for the perspective of broader number of food retailers
and other actors, i.e. suppliers and consumers, on the role of private eco-branding in furthering the market for sustainability
certified products. In particular, it is important to understand
what private eco-brands mean for agricultural
producers. Such research would contribute to eliminating the
controversy on whether private eco-brand strategies should be
perceived as green-washing and retailers' pursuit to enhance
bargaining power, or indeed trustworthy attempts to support
suppliers and consumers in their transition towards sustainability
practices;
Conducting quantitative assessment to provide support for early
empirical evidence on advantages of private eco-brands identified
in this study. This includes the evaluation of eco-brands’
contribution to cost-efficiency of greening product chains, to
levels of consumer uptake of sustainable products, and to net
environmental and social benefits delivered. The quantitative
validation of the comparative advantages of private ecobranding
vs. third-party certification will allow drawing more
conclusive results on implications of private eco-branding for
the development of ‘green’ markets.
Analyzing the interplay between private eco-branding and
third-party certification in the different national contexts to
reveal how the content, functionality and legitimization of these
market tools has co-evolved in the broader institutional context.