Greenwashing Hurts Everyone

There is a terrible fraud being perpetuated in the ecosphere that threatens to undermine the trend towards green living and is causing many consumers to unknowingly pollute the environment while under the impression that they are saving it. It’s called greenwashing and many unscrupulous businesses are indulging in this deceptive marketing tactic to con you out of your money and stomp on the environment at the same time.

What is Greenwashing?

The simplest explanation of greenwashing is when a company makes misleading, or outright false, claims about the Earth-friendliness of their company, products or business practices. It can be something as basic as claiming a product is green when in fact the environmental benefit is negligible to outright deception by launching a wide scale marketing campaign extolling the company’s new green initiatives when in reality the company is doing nothing of the sort.

Companies who participate in greenwashing are pretty clever when it comes to hiding the truth about their eco-friendliness and it can be a challenge separating fact from fiction. To help you avoid giving money to companies that choose to greenwash their business rather than clean up their act, I’ve put together a few tips for spotting a greenwashed product.

Educate Yourself

By far the easiest way to spot greenwashing is to understand what green really means. At its heart being eco-friendly means doing no lasting harm to the environment. So from its inception to its disposal a green product should have no adverse affects on the environment. It’s the same with businesses. Corporations should run their companies in a way that has little to no negative impact on the planet.

When you see a product on the shelf that claims to be eco-friendly, think about how the product was created, the impact it might have on the environment with its use and what happens to it when it is disposed of. If that product adds to environmental problem in any way, chances are it’s not as green as the manufacturer would like you to think.

Beware of Seals

Another area where companies try to pull a fast one is in the use of official looking seals and labels. Some seals, such as “Green Seal”, are valid because the product was independently verified by a credible third party. However, other seals are unregulated and thus are self-serving at best. Research which seals are official and lookout for those products that carry them.

Superficial Changes May Indicate Greenwashing

The most transparent form of greenwashing is when a company makes changes that are purely for show. For example, changing a product’s packaging to emulate the color scheme of similar green products, adding buzzwords like Eco or Enviro to the name of the product or spinning a product’s marketing pitch to make it appear to be Earth-friendly.

Usually your gut instinct will warn you when a company is trying to pull the wool over your eyes with these types of tactics. So if it feels too good to be true, it probably is. It is a good idea to take the time to find companies who are truly committed to the environment and, therefore, whose products you can trust to be green.

Greenwashing is a sad and senseless fact of this move towards eco-responsibility. But as more and more people wise up to the deceptive tactics of unscrupulous companies the sooner they can be exposed for the frauds they are.

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