UNSTUCK 033: Certifications: credibility boost or costly placebo?

Unstuck is back after a summer break. A little time away from the desk is always good to spend more time out in the real world and see things through the eyes of the consumer. One thing in particular stood out to us.  

Walk down any high street or grocery aisle and you’ll see it: a forest of green seals, stamps and stickers promising virtuous sustainability. Organic. Fair Trade. Carbon Neutral. Regenerative. Frogs, leaves planets and capital letters in circles. The list is endless and increasingly expensive.

For brand owners certifications can feel less like a badge of honor and more like a toll booth on the road to growth. The truth is most of these labels weren’t built to change the world, they were built to change perception. That doesn’t mean they’re worthless, but it does mean brand owners need to treat them as tools instead of halos.

Conscience for sale

On an early morning coffee run in Vienna, Zoran ran into a Nespresso boutique that felt more like a confessional waiting to dispense absolution to repentant consumers in 5 gram doses. The semiotics of the store design are clear: sleek design, soft lighting, a forest of circularity cues, and to top it all off a case study in rented virtue. When your product is a controversial object like single-use capsules, you outsource reassurance to a higher authority. Preferably one with a recognizable logo, like B Corp.

After a 3-year process aided by sustainability consultants, Nespresso landed its certification in 2022 scoring 84 out of 200 possible points (4 above the 80-point minimum for certification). Although a casual observer at the time could have been left wondering whether the whole company had rebranded from N to B based on the glowing press announcement.

The early adopters of the movement were not pleased. How could a multinational giant peddling an environmentally harmful product made with questionable labor practices possibly be a force for good?

To its credit, B Lab, the organization behind the B Corp certification, has since then embarked on some serious soul searching and started to rewrite the rulebook. The 2025 overhaul introduces hard minimums across impact categories, fewer ways to offset weak spots with softer wins, and more extensive requirements for large multinational firms. Although the change wasn’t big enough to stop Dr. Bronner’s, the poster child for brand purpose and the highest-scoring B Corp ever, to drop out of the standard claiming it had become compromised. 

Messaging comes before certification

Whilst it’s tempting to jump on the certification bandwagon, it’s important to remember what matters most to a consumer and should guide your all important hierarchy of messaging: taste first, health second, sustainability third.  

If you were going to invest in third-party validation of your product, you’d do well to start with one that celebrates how delicious it is. As we’ve written about before, the Great Taste awards in the UK have published that 80% of consumers say the coveted stamp on pack would make them consider buying it.  Whether you get the stamp or not, you’ll get some expert feedback on your product quality and whether it stands up.  

Unlike organic, where you have to be certified to use the term, vegetarian, plant-based and vegan endorsements are not legally defined and are free to use as long as you comply with truth-in-advertising laws. Badges like V-label are certifications that you pay for, which in the early days of brands like Quorn when they were specifically targeted at vegans and vegetarians were a helpful reassurance. However, as more brands aim to reach flexitarians and heritage vegan/vegetarian brands re-position themselves for wider market appeal, putting V-Label on your pack may be a detraction whilst the industry climbs out of its poor taste perception challenge and gets more consistently great tasting products out there.

Assuming you’ve hooked consumers with taste, you might want to start telling them about any health benefits you offer - high in protein or fibre, packed with veg or less saturated fat - can all serve to encourage repeat and more frequent purchase.

Should you buy or build?

So what value does a further clutter of third-party endorsements of your sustainability credentials bring you? For the consumer, very little. The only exception is when something is fundamental to the core of your brand proposition and differentiation in the market. Take Tony’s Chocolonely. They’ve built their brand around a fair cocoa supply chain (the brand started with an TV programme where the founder exposed the realities of the chocolate industry and cocoa farming). While they’ve built appeal through their bold packaging, chunky chocolate and flavours, it would be strange for them not to continue to reinforce their reason for being with a clear stamp that sits as part of their brand logo. Indeed, it’s so much part of who they are - they’ve created their own stamp rather than borrowing someone else's.   

Endorsement stamps cost time and money. They can be helpful for investors where the stamp carries credibility and becomes due diligence shortcut that someone else has done for them (albeit it can rely on self-assessment). For some investors it may be a hygiene factor - but that furthermore dilutes the opportunity for differentiation and distinctiveness with the consumer.  

Endorsement stamps tell you that brands carrying their stamp have seen sales uplifts - but it’s impossible to de-couple a good brand proposition, product and execution from what the stamp is doing.  

Before you add to, or start, a stamp collection, take a good look at whether your brand, product and packaging is doing enough to sell to consumers without them. If not, put your energy into fixing that first.  Once you’ve done that, you probably won’t need them anyway.