The Seven Sins of Greenwashing

In 2007, Terrachoice, an environmental marketing firm, conducted a survey on Greenwashing. The challenge and call-to-action of the Seven Sins of Greenwashing is to discourage greenwashing by putting practical tools in the hands of consumers and companies, while still encouraging and rewarding genuine efforts towards sustainable innovation.

Later in 2009, they conducted the survey again to see if there had been any changes to Greenwashing. They noticed that the sitiation was worsening- so much so that it merited an additional Sin to the research study. Hence, the report is now called The Seven Sins of Greenwashing.

Sadly, their 2009 research findings showed that out of 2,219 products making green claims in the United States and Canada, only 25 products were found to be Sin-free!!!

The original 6 sins of greenwashing are as follows :

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-off , committed by suggesting a product is ‘green’ based on an unreasonably narrow set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues.
2. Sin of No Proof, committed by an environmental claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or by a reliable third party certification.
3. Sin of Vagueness, committed by every claim that is poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer. ‘All natural’, for example. Arsenic, uranium, mercury and formaldehyde are all naturally occuring and poisonous. ‘ All natural’ isn’t necessarily ‘green’.
4. Sin of Irrelevance, committed by making an environmental claim that may be truthful but is unimportant or unhelpful for consumers seeking environmentally preferable products. ‘CFC-free’ is a common example, since it is a frequent claim despite the fact that CFCs are banned by law.
5. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils, committed by claims that may be true within the product category, but that risk the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole.
6. Sin of Fibbing, the least frequent Sin, is committed by making environmental claims that are simply false. The most common examples were products falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified or registered.

In 2009, the Seventh Sin emerged… Sin of Worshiping False Labels. Some marketers are exploiting consumers’ demand for third party certification by creating false labels or false suggestions of third party endorsement.

Nature’s Wizard has been educating North American moms to not only learn to read product labels but to ALSO understand what these ingredients are. Since this is not an easy task and sometimes too time consuming for the rushing mom to read labels during her quick visit to the grocery store, we conduct extensive product reviews on hundreds of product categories. As a mom myself, I know how hard it is to remember all the names of the toxic ingredients I must steer clear of- but, I do find it much easier to remember the ACTUAL product brand names. That is why Nature’s Wizard exists- from one mom to another, I want you to be the most educated consumer!

Information extracted from Terrachoices’ Sins of Greenwashing. Download the full report.

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