The Cleaning up of Greenwashing
Guidelines to Reduce Misleading Statements on Green Credentials
Mar 19, 2009
For export-oriented countries like New Zealand, there is increasing pressure from international markets, such as the USA and UK, to demonstrate just how environmentally-friendly products being brought from that country really are.
In the January 2008 Suite 101 article entitled “The Greenwashing of North America' Alan Sorum explains that “manufacturers of consumer products often claim misleading environmental benefits to better sell their wares to environmentally concerned customers”.
What is the Problem with Greenwashing?
More and more consumers are now becoming savvy to the practice of 'greenwashing', where a company makes claims about its 'green' credentials that are untrue or misleading.
Bryan Gundersen, in his NZ Management article "Sustainability: Greenwashing – a challenge for business to manage'” in September 2008 notes that more businesses are hoping to capitalise on consumer awareness of the environment, with this reaching unprecedented levels. Bryan points out that “The (NZ Commerce) Commission has become concerned that consumers are vulnerable to being misled by false and deceptive claims, in addition to some businesses gaining an unfair market advantage over others due to inaccurate greenwashing claims”.
For example, the NZ Commerce Commission recently warned a Wellington taxi company that is was publishing false and misleading information on its website in that company's “going green” campaign. According to Corrine Blumskey in the February 2009 NZ Retail article 'Greenwashing: How to avoid it' the company was claiming that its LPG cars "reduce pollution by up to 25%". Given the company were unable to substantiate this statement, they agreed to change the claim and make sure any future claims were able to be substantiated.
Guidelines to Help Businesses Avoid Greenwashing
In an attempt to help both businesses and consumers understand what this all means, the NZ Commerce Commission has now prepared and published a set of Greenwashing Guidelines.
The new guidelines provide advice to businesses on how to avoid making false or misleading claims about how ‘green’ their products really are. The information also means consumers are better informed and this will ultimately mean that consumers will have more confidence in products they purchase.
Eco Label Directory to Assist Businesses and Consumers
An eco-label directory has been developed by the NZ government which is useful for those businesses and consumers trying to understand what 'green' terms mean on a product. This should help combat the 'greenwashing'of products.
The directory aims to improve the availability of information about ecolabels and other sustainability indicators relevant to consumers, suppliers and other organisations. It provides a useful one-stop-shop to find out what all the different terms mean as well as finding summary information about each eco-label.
For businesses wishing to differentiate themselves from the competition by making environmental or ‘green’ claims, then it is important make sure that these are scientifically sound and appropriately substantiated. Consumers will then be able to rely on the environmental claims made and have confidence in their purchasing decisions.
 |
