9. Guidelines for Environmental Labels in the Agri-Food SMEs

In agri-food sector there has been the springing up of voluntary environmental labelling systems used as instruments for environmental communication and useful to obtain a commercial feed-back of eco sustainable management. The result is a varied survey and it becomes extremely difficult and complex for the operators to choose the most effective label which explains the values of their environmental involvement and the application of the operating modes of the chosen labelling system. The aim of this chapter is to draw up some guidelines which take into account the peculiarities of the soil, the specific quality of the products, the characteristics of the supply chain and of the company operative context and the final reference markets; by doing so, these guidelines provide the firms with the right criteria whereby they can choose the most adequate environmental label for their agricultural and food products thus helping them to enhance their communication strategies and their visibility on the market. These guidelines will assist the firms which want to apply an environmental label to their own outputs, choosing a communication system close to their realities through the evaluation of objective, comparable and believable information.