Consumers love certification labels. They allow us to "do the right thing" when shopping with confidence and convenience. Just a quick glance at a familiar logo – Fairtrade, Soil Association, Marine Stewardship Council, Vegan Society, Forestry Stewardship Council, to name just a few – and we can immediately be assured that the product in our hands has been produced under strict, certifiable standards.

Within a few months, it looks as if we could see another label on our consumerables. WindMade has been dreamed up by a powerful coalition comprising the Global Wind Energy Council, WWF, the Lego Group, the UN Global Compact, Vestas Wind Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Bloomberg. The aim is to produce a certification label which "identifies corporations and products made with wind energy".

The certification standards and rules have yet to be verified, according to the coalition's press representatives (pdf), but they say that the "WindMade initiative will be presented in more detail at a high-level gathering of the founding partners during the World Economic Forum in Davos on 28 February". Public consultation is expected to be completed by 20 March. And the first WindMade-certified corporations – presumably consisting largely of the founding members – will be announced on Global Wind Day, which falls on 15 June.

"Governments are dragging their feet, but consumers want to see change now," says Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, and interim CEO of WindMade. "The private sector needs to step up to provide the solutions we need to respond to the global energy and climate crises. With WindMade, we want to facilitate the change that the public demands."

Personally, I welcome the development for no other reason than information is power when you're a consumer. You might love wind power. Or you might hate it. Either way, this label will assist you in your decision-making when choosing a product. Some will find the label a positive endorsement and be keen to support companies choosing to invest in wind power. But I can also see other people using the label to shun a company because they are so vehemently opposed to wind farms. We see exactly the same happening with some of the other certification labels, but perhaps most notably Fairtrade and organic certification which attract both avid supporters and detractors.

And with the rapid ascent of smart phones boasting the facility to scan barcodes and apps such as GoodGuide, I can only see the information flow about products speeding up in future years. I look forward to the time when we can scan any product and - should we choose to - interrogate its provenance to a much greater depth than is currently possible.