Greenwashing is a hot topic at the moment as many companies are keen to advertise their green/ecological credentials. Greenwash is the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a products or service.

To help you avoid Greenwash the following 7 guidance notes are available:

• Hidden trade-off – a claim suggesting that a product is “green” based on a small set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues. For example, energy efficient lightbulbs made in a factory which pollutes rivers.
• No proof – when an environmental claim has been made and cannot be easily validated by supporting information or by a reliable third-party certification.
• Vagueness – when the claim is so vaguely defined or broad that the real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer.
• False labels – A product that gives the impression via images or words of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement exists.
• Irrelevance – This is a claim that may be truthful but is irrelevant for consumers seeking a environmentally prefable product. For example, products claiming “CFC-free” despite the fact that CFC’s are banned by law.
• Lesser of two evils – a claim that may be true within the product category, but that risks distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole. For example, organic cigarettes.
• Fibbing – these are environmental claims that are no other than false. The most common examples of this are products falsely claiming to be Energy Star rated or registered.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.