Product stewardship

Product responsibility referred to general sense the responsibility that meets the manufacturer or the retailer of a product, this product. Product stewardship is primarily a political concept, only secondarily a legal.

In the political context, it is product stewardship usually then talk when products have errors that only show up during use and thereby cause harm. Examples, which always attract a lot of public attention, are drug scandals, such as the recognized too late side effects of the drug Baycol or - from previous years - the thalidomide scandal. The appeal to the Product Responsibility usually has the purpose, a manufacturer of products, which may cause damage to stop higher degree of care in product design and in the production itself. In fact, if damage occurs, then this is the subject of product liability.

In recent years, more meanings of the term have been added. On the one hand is called so that the manufacturers imposed responsibility to ensure that a product can be disposed of without damage after use. This is regulated in § 23 of the Closed Substance Cycle and Waste Management Act. On the other hand can use it in a much broader sense requirements for the product to be meant, that have nothing to do with its performance, but are placed on the production process. An example of this is the expectation of many consumers that products are not made ​​by child labor; another is the expectation of food that their production is to take place environmentally friendly. The fulfillment of such " additional" requirements of a particularly responsible mode of production has so far been documented by the economy mainly through voluntary seal of approval. The best known, there are in the areas of environment ( "Blue Angel" ) and food ( " organic signs in accordance with EC Regulation on Organic Farming " and several of privately supported producer and trade organizations such as " organic " ), more in the area of ​​textiles.

In addition, product stewardship is the degree to which an employee identifies with the product he created. In journalism, for example, a lack of product stewardship lead to authors not introduce reasonable care and creativity in their texts. Although the controlling editor or only edited volatile and layouted, the product loses quality.

• Business Law
• Business Ethics