Japanese Association to Promote 'Social Products' Established

The Association for the Promotion of Social Products (APSP) announced on August 8, 2012, its establishment as a non-profit organization to promote people/environment friendly "social products". Generally, social products include ecologically-aware products and services, organic food and products, fair-trade products, and those products where a part of the profit goes to fund charitable organizations. Through promoting these products, APSP aims to ease or solve social problems such as global warming, poverty and food safety.

The main activities of APSP are the "Social Products Award" to commend excellent social products that promote a sustainable society, and "Social Audit" to provide third-party evaluations of the truthfulness/credibility of social products by verifying the claims of makers or providers; for example, APSP checks whether donations or the use of recycled materials is actually carried out as claimed on products and services. In addition, it engages in organizing seminars, forums, etc.

According to the results of the survey APSP conducted in July 2012, more than half of the respondents answered as follows; 53 percent of the respondents want to use social products in daily life in the future, 62 percent hope companies will provide more opportunities. in which people can make social contribution by buying goods and services, and 53 percent agree that increases in the buying and use social products will ease or solve social problems.

Under these circumstances, APSP intends to connect individuals having social consciousness to companies, and in doing so, it aims to create and vitalize the market for social products, to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society.