Certification labels – a big topic.

Some of them are just as honest as false promises, labels and packaging.

Seals suggest security: “Someone has checked this, there’s quality behind it” – whatever quality is supposed to mean. (Come with me to the supermarket for a moment and take a look at the vegetable section: there’s an outlandishly shiny sticker on the melon that reads: “From controlled cultivation.” Just imagine: someone actually goes out into the melon field and inspects it. Great!)
Cynicism aside: unfortunately, many seals are self-made. We at Lehm-Laden could also create our own seal to win your trust. (It is actually quite incomprehensible how this window dressing can and may persist: a corporation has experts – recruited specifically from its own ranks – prepare reports for its own interests or products, which are then given an in-house seal. Absurd.)

The inflationary use of labels is intended to emphasise the high quality of products and would have us believe that they stand for transparent work. And to some extent they do make the product and the producer transparent – ​​or, frankly, merely flimsy. At best, they prompt us to take a critical look at the matter.

The most widespread label is the Blue Angel: it looks extremely good and conveys a very good feeling: I have something of high quality, something truly proper. However, this Blue Angel says nothing about how good, fair and otherwise right the product really is. What the Blue Angel actually declares is that the current product has improved compared with its predecessor – according to whatever criteria. But isn't it the case in business, in product development, in engineering, that the constant and ongoing aim is to make all products “better” than their predecessors – in whatever respect? Consequently, every product would deserve a Blue Angel, but only those products whose manufacturers paid for it adorned themselves with it. Clout: zero.