The marketing people have heard the message that people want green products, but it hasn't yet translated to changes in manufacturing.
From The Star, Toronto, Canada's largest daily newspaper, comes a story about "Eco-friendly labeling? It's a lot of 'greenwash'." How many times have we all read, heard and watched a company telling us that their product is "natural", "eco-friendly", "green" or "sustainable"? What does it mean and does it pass the 'sin-free' test?
Sin Free
According to the Toronto Star April 17, 2009 story by Catherine Porter, of the more than 2,000 self-described environmentally friendly products in North America examined by the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice, only 25 were found to be indisputably "sin free." The rest were greenwashing.
The TerraChoice 2009 report, The Seven Sins of Greenwashing, highlights the good, the bad and the ugly.
- More products are making environmental claims. In stores that were visited in both 2007 and 2008/2009, the number of ‘green' products increased by 40%. Manufacturers and marketers are responding to consumer demand for more environmentally responsible goods. This is good news.
- Kids (toys & baby products), cosmetics and cleaning products (diapers, toothpaste, and window cleaner, for example) are the three categories where green claims - and greenwashing - are most common.
- Greenwashing is still abundant. Over 98% of ‘green' products committing at least one of the Seven Sines of Greenwashing. Of the 2,219 products claiming to be green in the United States and Canada, only 25, or less than 2%, products were found to be Sin-free.
- A new Sin has emerged - the Sin of ‘Worshiping False Labels'. This new Sin describes an effort by some marketers to exploit consumers' demand for third-party certification with fake labels or claims of third-party endorsement.
- Legitimate Eco-Labeling is on the rise. Legitimate eco-labeling is almost twice as common in this study (23% of products) as it was last year (14% of products).
- Greenwashing is an international challenge, with very similar patterns in the United States, Canada,the United Kingdom, and Australia.
The Major Drawback
According to TerraChoice, they are not revealing the specific stores visited for the report. However, store types included major ‘big box' retailers in the following categories: pharmacies, grocery stores, office supplies, ‘big box' multi-category, hardware/DIY and toys/baby products stores. Knowing the specific companies, firms and people that are committing these "sins" would be useful.
The Need to be Skeptical
In Canada, most transgressions fell into three categories: lack of proof, vague language or "hidden trade-offs" - the practice of emphasizing a product's green aspects while concealing others that are environmentally damaging.
For instance, "a 'green' pad of paper might have come from sustainably logged trees but been milled in an ancient, carbon-dioxide spewing mill that still uses dioxin-producing chlorine to bleach the pulp," said McDougall, president of TerraChoice. "It's like a magician drawing attention to the left hand so you can't see what the right hand is doing."
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