green ecoliving | Are You Being Greenwashed?

Are You Being Greenwashed?

Posted on April 17, 2009
Filed Under Green Living | Leave a Comment

“Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.”

The number of green products in the market is increasing exponentially. It seems that every business is claiming to be green. But are they? Or are we all being greenwashed?

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What criteria does a company use to determine that it is green, or to sell its claim to be a responsible green enterprise. While there are best practices, guidelines and the ISO 14021 standard for environmental labeling, these are not enforced and businesses use their own criteria to make that assessment, or pronouncement, themselves.

The environmental marketing firm TerraChoice just released “The Seven Sins of Greenwashing” (updated from the 2007 version, where there were only six sins!) which are:

  1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off – using a narrow set of attributes to determine a product is green, instead of looking at the entire manufacturing process.
  2. Sin of No Proof - making claims that cannot be easily substantiated by supporting documentation or third-party certification.
  3. Sin of Vagueness – poorly defined claim;  “all natural” is not necessarily “green” or even safe.
  4. Sin of Irrelevance – claim may be true but meaningless;  for example stating a product is “CFC free” since CFC is banned by law.
  5. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils – the product is harmful; making it a less harmful does not change that fact.
  6. Sin of Fibbing – basically lying about their green claim!
  7. Sin of Worshipping False labels (new) – fake labels of third-party certification.

The entire report can be downloaded from here: Greenwashing Report 2009

In November 2008 and January 2009 TerraChoice researchers visited 24 big box stores in Canada and the United States and evaluated 2,219 products and 4,996 green claims. They found that 98% of these products committed at least one of the previously identified six sins and a seventh sin emerged, the “The Sin of Worshipping False Labels”. Green claims – and greenwashing - are most common for kids toys and baby products, cleaning products and cosmetics.

So what is a consumer to do?

Do not give up. Keep supporting greener products but choose wisely. Pick products will reliable labels, or if absent products that offer transparency, information and education. If unsure, keep in mind the Seven Sins above.

According to the Greenwashing Index site, when presented with a green product we need to know “The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth“.

To keep companies honest you can login to The Greenwashing Index and rate ads on how green you believe them to be from 1 = authentic, to 5=bogus.  You can even submit ads for review.

Greenwashing is bad for the environment, consumers and business, so help cut through the greenwashing and we all win.

So, before you buy another green product, make sure you are not getting greenwashed.

P.S.

I like the The GreenWashing Index definition of greenwashing as:

“… when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.“

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