Eco-labeled Products: Trend or Tools for Sustainability Strategies?

"The paper offers a point of view on credibility of eco-labeled products, analyzing the relationships among company's sustainable strategy, eco-label and no-financial reports. Based on a cross-sector study of 109 companies with the EU-Eco-label licenses in Italy, the paper points out different behaviors among the companies investigated and explains the leadership of Italy in the number of these licenses. However, the paper underlines that the use of sustainability tools is not always matched to the explanation of companies' sustainable strategies. The study identifies the significant drivers for the management of eco-label within a sustainability strategy, drawing attention to the weight, and the hierarchical level of different decisions about sustainability. This study contributes to strengthening the understanding, promoting a discussion on the use of eco-label and on its value, and describing a desirable behavior that any company should tend in order to nourish the credibility that is an essential aspect for building strong associations with the brand."