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Evaluating Marketplace “Green” Labels And Claims
December 4, 2007
Ali Edwards
With the growing awareness of the environmental impact of our consumer lifestyles, Americans are looking for “environmentally friendly” consumption alternatives.  The marketplace is responding with a gold rush towards ‘green’.   The new byword for marketers is “green” and with that comes a whole lot of greenwashing.   While we clearly need to create clean and fair product and service alternatives, many of the new “green” products that are filling the shelves of America’s stores claim “greenness” without warranting that claim.  A November 30 NPR report on the realties of greenwashing in this growing market offers very useful guides for evaluating green labels and claims.  The report also highlights recent research done by the environmental marketing firm Terrachoice.  The firm’s research into product claims and greenwashing lead to some disturbing results, as well as the development of their Six Sins of Greenwashing (for full text with examples of each type of greenwashing click here):

1. The Sin of the Hidden Tradeoff is committed by suggesting a product is "green" based on a single environmental attribute (the recycled content of paper, for example) or an unreasonably narrow set of attributes (recycled content and chlorine-free bleaching) without attention to other important environmental issues (such as energy, global warming, water, and forestry impacts of paper).

2. The Sin of No Proof. Any environmental claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information, or by a reliable third-party certification.

3. The Sin of Vagueness is committed by every claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the intended consumer.

4. The Sin of Irrelevance is committed by making an environmental claim that may be truthful but is unimportant and unhelpful for consumers seeking environmentally preferable products. It distracts the consumer from finding a truly greener option.

5. The Sin of Lesser of Two Evils. These are "green" claims that may be true within the product category, but that risk distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole.

6. The Sin of Fibbing is committed by making environmental claims that are simply false.

Clearly consumers are going to have to drive the markets movement towards sustainability with some due dillagance in knowing where “green” products come from and how they are produced, then rewarding the best products with their purchasing power.  This NPR report is a helpful tool in doing our part in that process.


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