Green terms like sustainable, organic and eco-friendly appear everywhere. At sea in all this greenspeak, how can we tell real claims from false? You may not be familiar with the term 'greenwashing' but you will have experienced it ' misleading marketing about the environmental benefits of a service or product.
As the environment emerged as an issue in the 70s, so going green became big business and companies were eager to be associated with saving the environment. In some cases the company's green image is patently false; in most cases companies are involved in 'random acts of greenness' such as tweaking policies, practices and products; and in some cases companies are truly green and are implementing systemic changes.
why be concerned?
Why should we be concerned about greenwashing when there are other 'bigger' issues such as crime and unemployment, you say?
Because the environment underpins every issue and indeed continued life on the planet.
Supporting only genuine green initiatives is vital if we are not to be lulled into consumer and regulator complacency, thinking we are making progress when we aren't.
Greenwashing is dangerous in the opposite direction too in that it engenders scepticism even of legitimate corporate environmental successes. Consumers become uncertain of which claims to trust and how to make environmentally friendly purchases ' giving them an excuse to do nothing.
industry chimneys emit flowers
In the UK the number of complaints lodged with the advertising standards watchdog about green claims increased 4-fold in the last year. Shell was censured for a press advert showing refinery chimneys emitting flowers. Other examples might be a 'natural and organic' shampoo with images of forests and waterfalls; an energy company that runs a campaign promoting a 'green' technology they're working on when that technology represents only a fraction of the company's otherwise not-so-green business; and a bank that claims to be 'green' because you can manage your finances online. How do we train ourselves to pick out greenwash and know what are justified environmental claims? Here are guidelines based on a recent study, 'The Six Sins of Greenwashing,' by environmental marketing firm TerraChoice that gained national press coverage. The study found that more than 99% of 1018 common consumer products randomly surveyed were guilty of greenwashing.
what to look out for
Hidden trade-off: e.g. 'energy-efficient' light bulbs that contain hazardous materials such as mercury. Don't save with the one hand and destroy with the other (57% of all environmental claims).
No proof: This is a big one in South Africa, as there are mostly no national environmental standards and controls, e.g. shampoos claiming to be 'organic' but with no verifiable certification (26% of environmental claims).
Vagueness: e.g. terms such as 'earth-friendly' and 'eco-safe' give the impression of safety but leave room for misinterpretation, e.g. products that claim to be 100% natural even though many naturally occurring substances are hazardous, like formaldehyde (11% of environmental claims).
Irrelevance: e.g. products claiming to be CFC-free even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago (4% of environmental claims).
Fibbing: e.g. invoking the concept of a responsible industry such as eco-tourism while operating differently (less than 1% of environmental claims).
Lesser of two evils: e.g. 'environmentally friendly' pesticides. Greening a bad product doesn't make it safe (1% of environmental claims).
False labels: a product that gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement exists.
Green product versus dirty company: e.g. making organic baby food while emitting pollution into rivers.
Unjustified green images: e.g. pictures of herbs on cleaning-agent containers suggesting a natural product when it is not.
Jargon and information that only a scientist could check or understand.
web as a watchdog
At present there is no national accreditation system in South Africa; the web is the best place to check on products and companies. A growing number of sites help consumers sift the good from the bad. For example GoodGuide is an academic research-based site that rates products on 140 different criteria, tapping over 200 private and public sources of information. A final decisive score emerges rating how environmentally 'good' the product is alongside its competitors. Green Wikia (founded by the same guy who started Wikipedia) takes a totally different approach ' consumers decide what the best green products and services are, so the site relies on the experience of the masses. Interestingly, a study in the journal Nature found that Wikipedia is about as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica ' which suggests that being informed and sharing information will take us some way. Of course the South African adverting industry needs to be trained to identify greenwashing, business chambers need to set higher standards, and government needs to put standards and certifications in place too.
