The Seven Sins of Greenwashing: Is Everybody Lying?

An updated version of the 2007 report The Six Sins of Greenwashing has just been released. And like its predecessor, this version offers sensational findings: of 2,219 products making environmental claims that researchers found in North American retailers, "over 98%" committed one of several "sins." The 2007 report identified six such sins. This year's edition adds a seventh.

I suppose that's what passes for progress these days.

First, some background. In 2007, TerraChoice, a Canadian research firm that operates the Canadian government's EcoLogo program, sent research teams into six category-leading "big box" stores with orders "to record every product-based environmental claim they observed." TerraChoice then assessed each of the claims to see if they passed muster — that is, that they were specific, substantive, and could be backed up with some reasonable proof points, among other criteria. All told, out of just over 1,000 products, "all but one made claims that are either demonstrably false or that risk misleading intended audiences."

Late last year, TerraChoice repeated the process, though extended its reach: Its researchers were sent into retailers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. The track record was slightly better: 25 products found in North American stores were deemed "sin-free," says TerraChoice. The trends were similar in the other countries.

At first glance, those findings seem dire and depressing. But much like some of the eco-claims themselves, TerraChoice's report doesn't hold up to scrutiny. What's really going on here? Are manufacturers truly that overwhelmingly misleading? Is just about everyone out there pulling the green wool over our collective eyes? Or has TerraChoice set a bar so unreasonably high that even the most well-intentioned companies can't clear it, and lumped the imperfect claims together with the truly bad ones in order to make its point? In other words, who's greenwashing who?

Truth is, there's a little of each going on.

First, honor is due. TerraChoice has performed a public service here, calling attention to the fact that so many companies are making claims that are anything from fuzzy to fraudulent. The groundwork they've done here is invaluable, even if the conclusions they've drawn from it are, in my opinion, a bit misleading.

At first glance, TerraChoice's methodology seems reasonable. They put products making green claims through their filter that asks, in effect:

• Is the claim truthful?
• Does the company offer validation for its claim from an independent and trusted third party?
• Is the claim specific, using terms that have agreed-upon definitions, not vague ones like "natural" or "nontoxic"?
• Is the claim relevant to the product it accompanies?
• Does the claim address the product's principal environmental impact(s) or does it distract consumers from the product's real problems?

Products that failed to meet such requirements committed one or more "sins." As you can see, almost every product has done so.

Is the bar too high? Scot Case doesn't think so. "Manufacturers are doing a lot of great things," Case, the TerraChoice executive who headed the study, told me recently. "They are making significant advances. The challenge seems to be that their rhetoric is outpacing the actual improvements that they're making. So, we found all of these products — many of them make wonderfully specific, legitimate environmental claims. And they would be perfect, except that they want to take one more step and make an outrageous claim. And that's why the percentage of products that end up on the sinner's list is so high. It's because the marketers don't seem to know when to stop."

I asked for an example. "A product will make a claim that it contains 30 percent post-consumer recycled content," Case explained. "That's a good, simple claim. But then what they'll do is add on top of that that 'This is the greenest product ever made.'"

I countered that such a statement, should it truly exist, isn't an environmental claim so much as the typical hyperbole that is part and parcel of marketing of all types. It's akin to a mattress company claiming that their product is "Your ticket to a better night's sleep," or a beer company's claim that its product, "Tastes great. Less filling." It's not provable; it's just hype. Consumers are left to use their own smarts to discern the difference.

"I think that the challenge is that in this particular sector, we've got to be particularly precise with our language," responded Case. "Because what we're talking about are things that consumers can't see. When a manufacturer claims, for example, that their product is energy efficient, or that it meets the Energy Star standard, that's not something that I as an average consumer can test. When I'm walking the store down the refrigerator aisle, I don't have some sort of magic device to know if it's really energy efficient or not. So it seems appropriate that a manufacturer should be willing to provide proof and to make that proof widely available for me and other consumers."

(You can listen to a podcast of my entire conversation with Case here.)

Now, before we go further, it should be noted that not long ago, Case bought a refrigerator he believed to be energy efficient, but which ended up uising twice as much electricity as the manufacturer claimed. So, he's got some cold, hard experience here about misleading green claims. However, it sounds to me like he was a victim not of greenwashing, but consumer fraud.

But that's not what much of the "greenwashing" documented by TerraChoice is about. Some of it is about companies like SC Johnson, the maker of such venerable consumer brands as Glade, Pledge, Raid, and Windex, which has taken aggressive measures to reduce the toxic ingredients of its products and processes. Its Greenlist rating system — about which I've written in the past — has been systematically reducing the toxic ingredients and packaging of all of its products since 2001. Greenlist has won a bevy of awards, including honors from environmental groups and a Presidential Green Chemistry Award.

But Greenlist is a self-certified claim — that is, it has not hired an independent third-party organization like Case's to verify the claim. Thus, it's verboten — a "sinner," according to TerraChoice.

I asked Case about Greenlist. "It's a wonderful program," he acknowledged. But, he added, "The litmus test for whether a label was legitimate or not was quite simple: Can a consumer find out exactly what that label means?"

I suspect they can, if they conduct the same 10-second Google search I just did. The top result was a page on SC Johnson's website that provided as much information as I think any reasonable consumer would want or expect, with deeper links for those who want to know more.

The point here isn't to debate Greenlist or anything else. It's that, as I've pointed out before, a lot of what's called "greenwash" is in the eye of the beholder. What for some consumers might be a reasonable and meaningful marketing claim can be seen by others to be a travesty of justice. Sometimes the criticism is justified; often it's nit-picking.

I don't really know how many of TerraChoice's "sinners" amount to nit-picking. That's one of the ironic problems with the study: It lacks transparency and accountability. There are no products named, no sinners shamed. Are the "sins" detected by TerraChoice really all that egregious or, as I suggested last time, are the accused companies more sloppy than sinister? We don't know. Is SC Johnson as big a sinner as the toy company Case described that put its own green seal on a product because it decided unilaterally that wood was a greener choice than plastic? It's hard to tell. We are left with only the sensational factoid — ninety-eight percent! — and not the supporting evidence. We must make up our own minds whether to believe the facts, and what to make of them.

Kind of like some of the "sinners" TerraChoice is trying to fight.

No doubt, countless consumers, already suspecting the worst about companies' green motivations, will accept TerraChoice's findings as gospel — after all, it confirms their suspicions — not bothering to question what's behind them.

In the end, I can't help but wonder which is worse: the companies that aren't being fully truthful or transparent about their claims, or the consumers who will walk away from the green marketplace in frustration, dismissing all green products — the good ones and the rest — as cynical ploys by uncaring companies intended solely at separating consumers from their wallets.

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Comments

[Bruce K]

There is undoubtedly a lot of greenwashing in the marketplace today, but you make a key point that it is hard to separate hype from "claims" in the ad game. Until advertisements begin to resemble legal documents we are going to be stuck with a wide variety of advertising strategies where the facts merge with the hype. One other point needs to be made and no offense to Mr. Case or TerraChoice is intended, but the arguments for certification are very self-serving. There is a lot of scuffling going on over eco-labeling and there are many "competing" brands, e.g. Cradle to Cradle, EcoLogo, etc. I cannot blame SC Johnson or any other manufacturer for choosing not to pay the fees required for a label that has close to zero recognition with consumers. I have also reviewed Johnson's website and their criteria make sense to me and their own label is as meaningful to me as a third party's. A similar skirmish is going to take place in the carbon space over carbon accounting and we have to take care in not creating expensive systems of "verification" that add minimal value.

[Bruce K]

P.S. Visit the ecolabeling website if you haven't done so before and you will get a good idea of how much "competition" there is in the space. http://ecolabelling.org/
Few of these labels or certifications, if any, have much meaning to the average consumer (or even to the sophisticated greenie) because they all differ.

[Marc Gunther]

Joel, I think you are entirely too kind to TerraChoice and this survey. It's designed to generate headlines, not constructive debate. Imagine if a company said: "We've read 1,000 news articles about us and 950 have errors so how can you trust the news media? But we won't tell you who they are or allow them to defend themselves." Ridiculous. So is this survey. They're asking for accountability and yet they are accountable to no one.

[Mike Lawrence]

Marc, it’s true that it would have been better if TerraChoice had named names. (Maybe concern about dealing with 2,219 angry corporate lawyers made them think twice!) But Joel, I’d agree with Scot Case that what you call “typical hyperbole” does not belong in environmental marketing. Unfortunately it’s what advertising agencies and marketers are trained to do. They call it “puffery” and we spend a lot of time trying to squeeze it out of our clients’ environmental communications. Unfortunately, the FTC allows it. But in marketing about environmental impact, exaggeration should not be tolerated based on the bizarre rationalization that it is too extreme to believe. It deceives and confuses consumers on a topic that is crying out for clarity. And the eco-labeling traffic jam doesn’t help. Joel, it may be true that SC Johnson is doing the Lord’s work. But after reading the company’s online PowerPoint slides explaining its Greenlist methodology, I am still left wondering whether consumers have a right to expect such “acceptable-better-best” ratings to be made or validated by a third party rather than a corporation that has to juggle self interest and public interest.

[Mario Vellandi]

The 3rd party certification criteria is a valid one, but for certain product categories it just may not seem viable (single v. multi-attribute, credibility, fees). In that regard, I couldn't give a definitive "saint v. sinner" assessment based on this one aspect across the board - therefore we should take the survey results with a grain of salt.

Knowing the issues surrounding individual product categories would immensely help add context and insight (although that's something I wouldn't trust any research agency to comprehensively cover in a single report - nor would even want to read).

[Loreto Duffy-Mayers]

I think this statement sums it all up "The challenge seems to be that their rhetoric is outpacing the actual improvements that they're making".
Too many people have jumped on the Green bandwagon without really understanding what it is all about and many have fallen victim to the certification programmes some of which are only in it for the money too. Education is the issue and consumers need to be made aware that green claims should to be verified before they are accepted.

[Scot Case]

Joel –

Great piece. I’m glad to see that the Seven Sins of Greenwashing report (http://www.sinsofgreenwashing.org) is stimulating exactly the kind of conversation about clarifying definitions of and tolerance for greenwashing.

While TerraChoice decided not to reveal the names of the products in the 2009 Seven Sins of Greenwashing Report, the main purpose of the study is to help educate consumers and marketers about avoiding the pitfalls of greenwashing. It’s designed to help consumers, marketers, and manufacturers ask better questions.

And change is already taking place. Since the release of TerraChoice’s original 2007 report, both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Canada’s Competition Bureau have announced their intention to overhaul their environmental consumer protection activities. As you mentioned, Senator Feinstein is looking into possible solutions to the label proliferation problem.

The 2009 Sins of Greenwashing Report sets out some tips for consumers looking to make safe and environmentally responsible purchasing choices. For example:

(a) Keep supporting greener products. As consumers, we have enormous power to shape the marketplace. The worst result of greenwashing would be to give up.

(b) Look for, and choose, products with reliable eco-labels.

(c) In the absence of a reliable eco-label, remember the Seven Sins of Greenwashing (http://www.sinsofgreenwashing.org) and choose the product that does the best job at transparency, information and education.

(d) Read up on our green-shopping tools by visiting (http://www.sinsofgreenwashing.org).

While we might quibble with each other about where to draw the line of “acceptable” environmental marketing – is it OK for a company to tell us their products are green or should we demand proof that there are no cancer-causing chemicals in the product? We’re both definitely trying to promote wider use of truly greener products.

Thank you for keeping the conversation going.

- Scot

[Kyle]

Talking sense here - There are so many common misconceptions surrounding sustainability - Check out our myth-busting video “What’s Your Big Green Lie?!” which gives a taste of the widespread ignorance of green issues at http://www.biggreenlies.com.

[Ryan Jones]

Joel,
Great article here, tks...I'm glad that TerraChoice is stepping up and raising difficult issues in this space. However, with "link-bait" articles like this, they risk pushing not only consumers away...but also companies intent on pushing ahead with honest Green innovation. Not helpful.

[Kara Davidson]

Joel,

Thanks for the post and the analysis. I think the key point is that the study "lacks transparency and accountability." It basically removes the integral piece it needs to contribute to the discussion and understanding of the marketplace by not being open.

[Jeremy Stieglitz]

Claims aren't worth much. Independent and unbiased testing and certification services *can* reveal the truth. And you can see this very clearly in the disparity between claims and actual performance in LED lighting.

That market is filled with over-promises and under-delivery. Fortunately, in the LED lighting (aka solid state lighting) world, the U.S. government has stepped up (tremendously) and has established CALipers, a DOE independent test and certification facility.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/reports.html

We need similar large scale independent groups across the gamut of cleantech.