Advantages for companies and their products:

The Made-in-D certification provides companies with a powerful tool to distinguish their products through a clear commitment to ethical sourcing. This self-managed certification process is simple, cost-effective, and requires minimal time for most products.

Brand Value: Certification signals a proactive stance against supporting supply chains in dictatorships, where unchecked authority often leads to systemic human rights abuses, exploitative labor conditions, and opaque, high-risk supply chains.

Consumer Appeal: Certified products resonate with consumers who prioritize ethical production and social responsibility, offering a compelling reason to choose these products over less transparent alternatives.

Cost-Efficiency: The streamlined, self-certification process eliminates the need for extensive supplier collaboration, saving time and costs compared to traditional certifications.

Employee Engagement: Demonstrating a commitment to democratic principles can enhance morale and pride within the workforce, reinforcing positive perceptions of the company’s values.

Together, these benefits foster stronger consumer trust, brand loyalty, and long-term competitive advantage. Through certification consumers can choose between two similar products, differentiating them for their non-autocratic supply chains.

Marketing is key to acceptance, especially to a younger generation (via sports, music etc.).

•Getting leading manufacturing countries to participate and major companies of consumer brands to join in self-certification.

•Convincing democratic governments to encourage this effort and to require that their own principal products be Made-in-D.•Getting consumers aware of the Made-in-D  label and its importance.

•Important funds are needed to engage, lobby and advertise with the most efficient team in a worldwide effort, but with a local touch.

•Effort must be sustained over long time horizons, several years will be needed until the brand Made-in-D  is a household label that is commonly recognized.

•Dictatorships will certainly try to undermine effort (trolling, hacking) and Made-in-D  must be robust enough to sustain efforts.

“D” needs to become a requested “brand”

Ideally,  in the future this could become an important consideration for deciding where to invest and manufacture !

•Today most investments of where to produce are made with almost exclusively economic factors in mind.

•Considerations are on the order of;  which markets are interesting to sell to and which countries have lowest costs?

•Rarely are considerations of the ethics of the country considered. 

•Made-in-D  is a way to encourage companies to consider democratic values when choosing next investment locations.

•Often there is little external incentive to remain democratic as a country and this is seen in degradations of democracies worldwide.  Made-in-D would thus create an important incentive to remain or to become more democratic.