Two posts ago I talked about greenwashing in the case of Lego and Shell and how consumer choice is important in supporting environmentally-conscious companies. I thought, and I think many of us do as well, that at its worst, greenwashing would mislead consumers to choose the wrong products and support the wrong companies. The author of Greenwashing: do you know what your buying? made me reconsider this, however, by showing how greenwashing may have a direct negative impact on the environment and human health. One example of a greenwashing ad really hit home:
"Malaysia Palm Oil. Its trees give life and help our planet breathe, and give home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna. Malaysia Palm Oil. A gift from nature, a gift for life."
Really???
After this?!
The statistics are insane. According to a survey by TerraChoice, 98% of products claiming to be environmentally-friendly surveyed in the USA were "greenwashed" (Dahl, 2010). As a result, there has been increasing talk about how to prevent this is consumer products via the better regulation and usage of green labels. The article Greenwashing: Do you know what your buying? gives a concise overview green labelling and its challenges and developments.
The article mentions that as of today, green advertising is not strictly regulated by many governments (Dahl, 2010). This includes green labelling, of which there is great variability in the reliability of green labels in the market. The article highlights plans by the US's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to provide more specific definitions for terms such as "carbon-neutral", as well as a possibility of better standardising green labels. Dahl then addresses some of the current problems associated with unregulated green labelling, including loss of consumer confidence and "dirty" companies hiding behind green labels to evade regulation. The article also included short interview statements from experts in the field; and while they approve of FTC's plans, they also acknowledge that the movement towards an effective green labelling scheme will take time and conviction to achieve and that there is still work to be done.
I generally agree with the author on the status of green-labelling in the consumer market today. Personally, I find many "green" efforts of companies to be half-hearted in saving the environment. What this journal article has not mentioned, which is also often the case in other journal articles, however, is the possibility of companies who think they are saving the environment through these half-hearted measures. Greenwashing is often mentioned as a deliberate attempt for companies to up-play the environmental benefits of their products, but I think it is possible that companies may also participate in superficial acts of environmentally-conscious behaviour and think that their product may be better for the environment.
For example, a company could source for organic fibres for their clothing and on the surface, this could be seen as a good move for the environment and one that a company could market as "green". However, how environmentally-friendly the final piece of clothing really is would also depend on other factors such as the production process or even non-manufacturing activities in the company. The line here is blurred because it is unclear whether the company is deliberately overstating its environmental efforts, or if a lack of proper evaluation and holistic environmental actions in developing the products has led it to be greenwashed.
As such, I am for a standardised labelling system that is able to regulate green advertisement in the industry and inform consumers about how green a product really is, but in addition, I feel that this might need to be supplemented by training programs for producers on how to truly green a product and a company. Furthermore, I do think many companies are increasingly realising the need to go green but some are more dedicated to the cause than others. Hence, a scaled labelling system, awarding different amount of points depending on how environmentally sustainable a product is, may be useful as well. This may encourage companies to start somewhere and take small steps to being green, but also give the necessary recognition to companies who have been playing a green game for a long time. Such a label will allow for a more dynamic system to accommodate variations in the market.
The question remains, however, which stakeholder will be most affected by the need for a better green labelling system to put in the required effort to do so. A comment by Scot Case, President of TerraChoice, says:
"I think there is room for some kind of unifying green label [...] [b]ut I'm not sure if the government wants to get into the business of putting 'approved' stickers on good products."
The consequence of repeated greenwashing is a loss of consumer confidence in green products, which should be a rallying cry for something to be done about it, because if consumers become skeptical and dismiss all green products, including those which are truly that, then "we've lost an incredibly powerful tool for generating environmental improvements" (Dahl, 2010).
References:
Dahl, R. (2010). Greenwashing: do you know what you're buying? Environmental Health Perspectives, 118(6), A246-A252. doi: 10.1289/ehp.118-a246
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