Greenwashing: Navigating the Marketing Claims (Part 2)
Consumers are increasingly saying they want the option to buy green products. But they’re also wary about greenwashing and the authenticity of claims from product manufacturers seeking to ride the green wave. As Eric Wilson noted in his December 17, 2007, post, “more than half of the 2,007 respondents in a shopper survey in September by BBMG, a branding agency, said they were looking for certification seals on green claims to feel confident about their purchases.”
Such labeling systems do exist. TerraChoice has its EcoLogo ™. Fair trade has labeling initiatives under the umbrella of the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations Initiative. Many consumer products industries have their own labeling system.
Enviromedia Social Marketing created “The Greenwashing Index,” the first online, interactive forum that allows consumers to evaluate the environmental claims made in advertisements. The purpose of the Greenwashing Index, according to Enviromedia Social Marketing is to:
- Help consumers become more savvy about evaluating environmental marketing claims of advertisers;
- Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims;
- Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.
Websites such as www.buygreen.com use proprietary rating systems to encourage an environmentally preferred purchasing strategy for consumers and businesses. Buygreen.com does extensive research to rate products based on their material sourcing, manufacturing process, use and disposability. What’s one of the more popular products sold at www.buygreen.com? Garbage bags. Somehow, that seems appropriate.
I met Allison Huke, co-founder of Buygreen.com, at the Green Business Conference last November in San Francisco. A profile of Allison and BuyGreen.com can be found here. Allison says she started the company because, like many people, she didn’t know where to buy green products or how to sift through various green claims. This confusion is one of the reasons greenwashing exists.
We can either sit around and wait for the FTC to tell us what green means, or we can do what Allison did and what Enviromedia enables – figure out for ourselves, based on our own value systems, how green is green.
