Societal utility (“Public Value”)

In a welfare-based market economy it is assumed that consumers make decisions about the utility of products and hence generate demand for particular products and services. And that is a good thing. But the state should intervene when the ecological or societal burdens of products are too high for the common good. It is also expected that the state will promote promising technologies and products for the future to ensure the sustainable development of society. Appropriate support programmes, tax relief and laws should only come into being, however, on the basis of clear analysis and reasoned assessment. In line with a risk-benefit assessment both the risks and the benefit need to be clearly analysed and assessed. Indeed this is increasingly becoming standard in EU legislation.

PROSA is aimed above all at products that have a high societal benefit and offer companies “sustainability opportunities“. The products should make an essential contribution to key national and international objectives, such as international poverty reduction (set out in the Millennium Development Goals), securing peace, the basic objective of the Rio Declaration (economic development and satisfaction of basic needs), climate protection (Framework Convention On Climate Change), the preservation of biodiversity (Convention on Biological Diversity), as well as jobs and societal stability. A minimum precondition in this can be that the products have a high practical utility and no contrary impacts within society.

The assessment of societal benefit depends crucially on the status of the society. For example, the satisfaction of the basic need for food is assumed to be taken for granted in a rich country.