Corporate Decisions about Labelling Genetically Modified Foods

This paper considers whether individual companies have an ethical obligation to label their Genetically Modified (GM) foods. GM foods and ingredients pervade grocery store shelves, despite the fact that a majority of North Americans have worries about eating those products. The market as whole has l...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: MacDonald, Chris (Author) ; Whellams, Melissa (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2007
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2007, Volume: 75, Issue: 2, Pages: 181-189
Further subjects:B Corporate social responsibility
B Technology
B voluntary
B Labelling
B Genetically modified foods
B Self-regulation
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Description
Summary:This paper considers whether individual companies have an ethical obligation to label their Genetically Modified (GM) foods. GM foods and ingredients pervade grocery store shelves, despite the fact that a majority of North Americans have worries about eating those products. The market as whole has largely failed to respond to consumer preference in this regard, as have North American governments. A number of consumer groups, NGO’s, and activist organizations have urged corporations to label their GM products. This paper asks whether, in such a situation, individual corporations can be ethically required to take such unilateral action. We argue that they cannot. Given the lack of solid evidence for any risk to human health, and the serious market disadvantage almost surely associated with costly unilateral action, no individual company has an ethical obligation to label its GM foods.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9245-8