As the demand for green products from organisations and consumers increases, so does the marketing value of highlighting the environmental credentials of a product. This in turn can lead to an increase in the amount of environmental product claims that are less than genuine.

Purchasers can be faced with vague, misleading, incomplete, unsubstantiated or inaccurate environmental claims. Even accurate information can be misleading when it only concentrates on a single part of a product's lifecycle.

 

These claims are commonly referred to as “greenwash”, defined by the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as “disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image”.

 

Greenwash is the practice of making an unsubstantiated or misleading claim about the environmental benefits of a product.

 

It’s a very important issue because it is undermining the confidence of purchasers regarding green products, a key driver of the growth of the market for more sustainable goods and services.

 

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The Australian context

In 2007 ECO-Buy reported on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) decision to increase its scrutiny of environmental marketing claims. The ACCC’s decision to instigate court proceedings against GM Holden for its range of advertisements promoting Saab cars in 2007 underlines how important Australia’s competition watchdog thinks the issue of greenwash is.

The ACCC looks for instances of misleading and deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act, but they don’t rule on the environmental merits of particular products; rather on the claims made about them.

Part of ECO-Buy’s service to its members is providing a list of genuine green products on the ECO-Find database. Listing on ECO-Find requires suppliers to provide independent verification of their environmental claims, thus creating a more valuable tool for our members and others seeking green products.

This also helps strengthen the market for green products, supporting the many suppliers whose products have genuine environmental claims, and making it harder for those suppliers relying on greenwash to build their sales.

 

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There are two broad ways that suppliers can market to buyers the ‘green-ness’ of their products or services (or indeed their whole company), both of which are open to greenwashing, inadvertently or deliberately:

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There are a large number of Australian and international eco labels, and the ones below are a few of those that ECO-Buy uses in assessing products to be listed on the ECO-Find database.

 

 

 

Genuine eco labels use recognised standards that are based on life cycle thinking and assessment, but its worth highlighting that like all such methodologies, these use a set of assumptions to underpin a modelling of ‘reality’ – shift some of these assumptions (scope, formulas etc) and the outcomes can also shift.

 

The key things ECO-Buy considers when assessing an eco label are:

 

Not all product categories have a relevant eco-label, or a label may not align with a product suppliers view of what green/sustainable is, plus the process of applying and verifying can be too expensive or prescriptive for smaller suppliers or those with a suite of products offerings.

 

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The ISO standards for environmental marketing (14020 series), which the ACCC use as a benchmark, include a wide range of principles and specific criteria for both eco labels and self declared environmental claims, including that they be:

 

• Accurate and non-deceptive

• Substantiated and verified

• Specific about the improvement or benefit claimed

• Specific about whether the claim relates to the product or its packaging.

Claims that make broad implications such as “environmentally friendly”, “sustainable”, “natural” or “green” are considered misleading under ISO standards, because they imply the product offers general environmental benefits yet do not qualify this.

 

The reality is that all products have some impact on the environment over their life cycle, so no product can offer such an unqualified environmental benefit.

 

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Carbon neutral

 

‘Carbon neutral’ is another much used environmental claim, and its use should also follow the ISO principles and criteria. The ACCC has a guidance paper for consumers and marketers, Carbon Claims and the Trade Practices Act.

 

The Carbon Offset Guide published by Global Sustainability At RMIT and the Victorian EPA is also a good resource for understanding and assessing the claims of offset providers.

 

ECO-Buy only recommends the purchase of carbon offsets in the context of a carbon reduction management plan, that is, they are only a part of any strategy to deal with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

 

The Victorian EPA has also developed a set of carbon management principles to guide organisations as they develop their own carbon reduction plans.

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Robust, credible, relevant and verifiable information is the key  in avoiding greenwash.

 

Vague and generalised claims should ring alarm bells for both purchasers and marketers alike, particularly when you cannot easily find (on the product, its packaging or the company website) information or links to information that verifies any green claims being made.

 

And whether it’s a self declared or logo based claim, 3^rd party verification is vital.

 

As a purchaser, firstly you need to have an understanding of the product or category in question, either through your own research or via 3^rd parties such as ECO-Buy.

 

The major environmental impacts of the product/category from a lifecycle perspective is the key question to answer.

 

Once you know this, find out what are some relevant product attributes, what are the relevant eco labels (if any) and what product alternatives might be available in the marketplace (checking with your current supplier/s is a good place to start).

 

As mentioned above, the green product attribute claimed needs to address the key environmental impacts of that product/category.

 

The one caveat here is that a product with attributes that are more peripheral to the key environmental impacts can still be considered  ‘green’ when there are no comparable or competing products that do any better ie. when a little bit of green is as good as it gets for that particular category.

 

However, it’s a very dynamic marketplace, with new/improved products being introduced on a regular basis, which is one of the reasons why an embedded continual improvement approach to green purchasing is so important.

 

Otherwise you can get caught with your environmental pants down as the market moves on and you are still buying “yesterdays” not very green product.