Globalization

Globalization has removed many traditional rights and protections that used to exist in national economies. This has created a degree of reaction, especially among Greens, Reds and some Pinks who object to the additional power Blues seem to get when weak global trade bodies can't stand up to powerful transnational corporations. It has also created the conditions under which Consumerium Services can step in to solve problems:

• the loss of border controls or tariffs on imports has made biosecurity more of a challenge - so people want to know more about the human health impacts of the products they consume which have come from some other country
• the loss of export subsidies has led some to seek new types of work, and perhaps sustainable work, in agriculture, and thus they want marketing channels that will actively discriminate against non-sustainable agriculture that might compete with them - these people have a motive to promote Consumerium as a way to make say Slow Food more popular, and create new jobs for themselves
• the inability to control corporate behaviour has led to standards like SA 8000 which make it much easier to apply buying criteria agreed globally and reflect this in the Consumerium buying signal
• the inability to prevent deforestation by national rules has led to some organizations like Greenpeace applying heavy pressure to have standard labels like "no old growth" applied globally to forest products
• the ISO 19011 accounting standard is evolving to deal better with styles of capital, some of which have historically been protected in the national legal regimes, but which now are subject mostly to global laws (copyright for individual capital, trademark and SA 8000 for social capital, patent for instructional capital are the most obvious examples, and ISO doesn't deal with this well yet, but natural capital accounting like ISO 14000 has in some ways replaced older controls on land ownership and sale at the national or lower level that used to restrict some non-sustainable uses).
• financial capital flows so freely globally that it is very dangerous for a producer to have a global campaign specifically against their product - their investors and buyers will go elsewhere quickly

For these reasons the Consumerium timeline will probably compress when the overall globalization process is progressing faster, and stretch out if it slows down. Every protection removed at borders is another that may need to be applied at the retail shelf.