1

It is my privilege to welcome you all to this session on ‘Comparative Testing

for Sustainable Lifestyles’ and compliment CI on having decided to focus on

this subject. Will this session mark a major milestone for the consumer

movement? Time will tell.

Comparative testing for sustainable lifestyles, you would all agree, is

� A novel concept

� A new perspective

� A fascinating challenge

I am not going into the “WHY” of sustainable lifestyles. We had a session in the

morning on ‘Sustainable Consumption and Tackling Climate Changes’. We

all know the importance of “WHY” we need to move towards sustainable

lifestyles.

Comparative testing (CT) has been a very important tool used by consumer

groups, to empower consumers to make an informed choice in the market place

and get value for money. Traditionally, consumer groups engaged in

comparative testing have been testing products for their safety and

performance. Since 1936, when Consumers Union started its testing with

2

breakfast cereals and milk, comparative testing has come a long way. It has

evolved in terms of the nature of products being tested, to test methodologies

and parameters, to presentation of results to readers. And the evolution of

comparative testing is still on.

It has led to products becoming better and safer.

After comparative testing became a successful tool for campaigning for quality

products, consumer groups extended comparative testing to services. This

helped to provide consumers with comparative data on services, which was, and

still is, an issue of concern in most countries.

After this, comparative testing has moved to include the rating and ranking of

products on corporate ethics. VKI - Consumers Association of Austria was the

first to do this. Such comparative corporate tests supplement the results of

product tests. Consummentenbond - The Netherlands has also worked in this

area, including corporate ethics tests with product tests.

3

Having tracked in brief the movement of comparative testing, you would all

agree that comparative testing is elastic, and keeps responding to the needs of

society.

So today we discuss, how we can look at comparative testing for sustainable

lifestyles.

If we look closely, product test reports in the last few years have been already

expanded to include some aspects of sustainable lifestyles. If the product test

report on water efficient showerheads by CHOICE, Australia indicates which

brand consumes less water or the work done by CONSUMERS KOREA brings

a halt, to the use of Endocrine disrupting chemicals, we have already walked in

that direction. When INSIGHT magazine, brought out by CERC, India,

published with its ‘Tea’ test report brandwise information on pesticide residues

and heavy metals, it was a product test report looking at environmental criteria

as well. We can conclude that the consumer movement has been tiptoeing into

comparative testing for sustainable lifestyles.

4

We therefore highlight in today’s session what has been the experience so far

and what should be the methodology to follow. Most countries have an eco-

labelling scheme and set criteria for a product to get an eco-label. Could we

include these in the product testing reports for consumers? CERC, India and

GTZ, Germany, are jointly doing a project on ‘Consumer Advisory for

Environment Friendly Products’ wherein we have selected products, for testing,

which fall under the voluntary eco-labelling scheme of India. E.g., we are

testing Toothpastes, for lead and arsenic, and Food Mixers for energy

consumption and noise over and above the usual performance tests.

Another way would be to include the ‘Sustainability’ feature when testing and

reporting, e.g. A test report on ‘Mobile Phones’ can also include brandwise

information on how long the battery will last, for how many years the

manufacturer will be able to provide a replacement battery, spares, etc. for that

model. Often the only reason for which we have to change our mobile phone is

the non-availability of ‘battery’, as most mobile phone manufacturers consider a

model obsolete within a year. It is important to reduce this ‘USE AND

THROW’ trend that is fast developing with many products.

5

There are several ways to telescope sustainable lifestyle parameters into

comparative testing. Comparative testing can help navigate consumers

towards a more sustainable lifestyle. This session will also look into how

readers would respond to such information. However, we all know that giving

such information to consumers does not guarantee in itself a more sustainable

consumption. This depends on various factors. Comparative testing for

sustainable lifestyles cannot be fully successful unless consumer groups ensure

that consumers have sound information and education on the environmental

impacts of their buying decisions and lifestyle choices. But, by and large, we

can expect a positive response from readers.

Comparative testing for sustainable lifestyles has therefore a tremendous

potential. In fact, in countries where products are becoming more and more

similar and safer, it is a challenge for consumer groups and magazine editors to

bring out the differences among brands tested. Hence adding the dimension of

sustainable lifestyles to testing could be the way ahead.

6

But there are some problems too, that we should not overlook. And one of them

is when environmental values conflict with the traditional price quality ratios; it

is not always that consumers are ready to pay more for environment friendly

products. Also products may meet environmental criteria but not quality

parameters and vice versa.

------------------ - --------------- -------------------