It's something that is starting to weigh on consumers' conscience, according to Tensie Whelan, director of New York University's Center for Sustainable Business, and former president of the Rainforest Alliance.
But while this might assuage consumer consciences, the issue ruffles the pro-vegan animal-rights group Peta.
Legislation is playing a role, with Europe scheduled to phase out bare wire cages for egg production by 2012, but consumer consciences are paramount.
Only the portion of the industry that wants to cater to consumers with consciences has changed; the rest of the industry continues to use pesticides, or unfair trade, or destructive fishing gear – and can sell those products at lower prices to people who don't feel bad about buying them.
Leave it to the conscience of consumers, while that conscience is muted and confused by advertising and corporate lies.
"The consumer's conscience, which is all we had left, that's gone, too".
While green living may be one thing, green dying is quite another - and not usually something that's at the forefront of an eco-consumer's conscience.
[Certification schemes] are a way to ease the consumer's conscience.' (LB, interview 19 September 2012).
This party has honest owners and a good chemistry: environmentally friendly, socially responsible, appealing to consumers' brains and consciences, it is the sort of thing you might find in an organic store.
There are lively niche markets, where consumers' sharpening social consciences and growing fondness for luxury have been lifting sales.Clever companies satisfy both at once. Green & Black's, a small firm that sells expensive, organic GM-free chocolate, has seen its sales rise five-fold since 1999 to £23.4m in 2003.
