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This paper proposes to examine the state’s constraints on the decisions of economic actors. On the basis of public environmental labeling policy, it uncovers one of the levers of action that is based on the capture of private interests by public actors. In the first section, we will show how public actors have managed to capture the interests of companies that have developed pioneering approaches to environmental information in order to direct them towards the objectives of public policy, by using the balance of power within markets. In the second section, we analyze how the public actors are able to use the methods of capture used by certain private actors to gain leverage effects within the dynamics of competition. We then suggest that this form of market-based governance consists of relying on the balance of power in the market to create constraints on the decisions taken by economic actors.