Is Greenwashing Really a Problem?

Green news has been inundated of late with warnings to consumers to be aware of greenwashing. While consumers should read labels and be certain the products they buy are truly green, these warnings seem almost frantic in nature.

Greenwashing is when businesses label their products as green or eco-friendly when the products don’t actually meet these standards. It is about people being fooled into buying products that are not really good for them nor for the environment.

Consumers today should be savvy enough to navigate through advertising hype. How many people really think that sugary cereals are nutritious? Yet TV commercials and cereal box labels still want us to believe that sugary frosted cereals are “part of a nutritious breakfast.”

There are of course many more examples of advertising hype as we all well know, so shouldn’t the same hold true for eco-friendly products? After all, today’s consumer is demanding more and more of these products and so of course corporations want to package their goods to meet market demands.

Of course regulations and certification labels are helpful in identifying which products meet our green demands, just as any other product should follow the truth in advertising rules.

Currently the Federal Trade Commission Act requires that all advertising:
• Be truthful and non-deceptive
• Must have evidence to back up their claims
• Cannot be unfair

Businesses can be forced to pay stiff fines and face penalties for not adhering to these guidelines.
Then there are cases where labels are technically truthful about their certification but the product may not actually meet the standards we may personally think they should.

A good example is the organic label. Many foods are labeled as organic but they are only organic in the strictest sense of the word. Many farms follow organic practices with their soil standards and so are able to be USDA certified as organic, yet they really follow factory farm practices in everything but their soil (the Cornucopia Institute is but one organization that follows organic farming claims and has great material about which organic products do not utilize humane farming conditions and are actually large factory farms).

These are cases where a certified label doesn’t really mean as much as we might hope it would.

In addition, greenwashing may not be a completely bad thing, but rather a symptom of the growing demand of consumers for products that are safe for our health and the health of the planet.

Many companies that have heretofore created toxic chemicals and products are now producing and advertising their green products. There are so many "green" products on the shelves of mainstream grocery stores, we don't have to make that extra trip to the co-op or Whole Foods to buy laundry soap. It should only get better from here!

As with any product, we should be smart and savvy and should read our labels.