What is greenwashing?
Greenwashing is spending more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing rather than truly minimizing your environmental impact by wasting your time and money being greener.
How to avoid greenwashing:
1. Look for “meaningful claims.” If something says it’s “all-natural”, “organic”, or “eco-friendly”, look at the label. If this claim is true, the label should explain how it meets these affirmations.
2. Products often present a wide image by using terminology such as "environmentally friendly" or "eco-safe", but for being a bit vague, little or no information is transmited. In addition to written claims, companies often use images such as Earth or green images on labels.
3. A company can put "natural and organic" on their labels, but if it doesn't have a certification label, it is most likely not organic. Beware of the common greenwashing words. These include: eco-friendly, green, all-natural, earth-friendly, non-toxic, plant-based, plant-derived, pure, raw, healthy, organic. Without certification these words mean nothing. Natural does not mean environmentally friendly, so be skeptical of these claims.
Here are some good certifications
Ikea greenwashing,
An investigation found that Ikea is selling chairs made from illegally felled wood in the forests of the Ukrainian Carpathians, home to endangered lynxes and bears. Illegal wood has been used to make a huge number of products.
Global Furniture Ikea used illegal wood from Ukraine in its supply chain and one of the world's leading forest certification organizations could not prevent it from happening.
-Volswagen emissions scandal
The scandal now engulfing VW, which has admitted to fitting cars with software designed to give false readings in emissions tests. But it’s not the first emissions-cheating case, even for the German giant itself. On 23 July 1973, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused it of installing defeat devices in cars it wanted to sell in the 1974 model year. VW then admitted it had sold 1973 models with the devices.
The EPA suspected that VW had sold 25,000 vehicles with
the cheating technology. The US took the company to court
for violating the Clean Air Act. It settled with a $120,000 fine without admitting any wrongdoing.
Diesel, sued for greenwashing.
At the beginning of the year, the Italian oil company Eni made history by being the first in the country to be processed by greenwashing. The company was fined 5 million euros ($ 5.94 million) for claiming that its palm oil-based diesel was "green" in an advertising campaign.
Italy's advertising watchdog ruled that the marketing campaign misled consumers with claims that Eni Diesel + "green" fuel was good for the environment, saves fuel and reduces air pollution.