Awash with Green!
So reads the title of an article in the May issue of Canadian Packaging by Lisa Beutel, a consultant and marketing manager.
Seems, “53 per cent of North American consumers instinctively mistrust what brand-owners tell them about their supposed moral and ethical superiority. Beutel said that companies who fail to back up their claims with clear facts risk long-lasting damage to their reputations, citing the still-lingering effect of child-labor allegations plaguing the global sportswear giant Nike, Inc. ”
I loved their definition of green-washing: “a mixed bag of half-truths, meaningless sloganeering and plain wishful thinking.” The article cites statistics that say “90 per cent of consumers are concerned about the environment and how their purchasing behavior affects it.”
This means that throwing a little green-washing into your product, labels, marketing, advertising etc. really pays off. But hold it! Apparently the market is full of ‘excessive green-washing’ and consumers are becoming more aware of this. So, we might look to a brand that has certification from a third-party certifier who can verify the claims we read.
Well, hold it again! Seems that “economic-impact calculators from six different organizations to estimate the carbon-dioxide output from producing one metric tonne of unbleached packaging produced a range of scores from a low of 773.62 kilos to a high of 3,538 kilos.” In fact, “the data was incredibly varied.”
So, apparently there are “pitfalls of simply purchasing one of the many readily-available, seemingly credible certification eco-labels and slapping them on the products” without first checking the credibility of the certifier.
So, who CAN we trust??? If green-washing really sells products, and it pays off even more to add a questionable eco-label….well, all I can say is HELP!!
We see so many companies adding ‘organic’ to their name, labels and marketing when they really aren’t. We tell the truth, as we are a small company who has to depend on real people buying and loving our products, and we can’t fool them. Actually, we don’t want to! But, are we being penalized for telling the truth? By not touting a product as organic which just has a few organic ingredients, are we losing market share?
I was recently wondering if WE should get an eco-label that says Certified Organic or something, but apparently, it doesn’t mean that much. Actually, I was surprised that only 53 per cent of people mistrust eco-claims, (did I just make up a new word?)
It’s back to the beginning for me: still harping on ‘read the labels, read the labels.” A company called “__________ Organics” recently introduced a product that actually contains NO organic ingredients in it’s listing. At least they are being truthy there! Baclically, the packaging mag agrees with me, “When it comes to greenwashing, we all need to be aware of all the possibilities and to do all the due diligence.”
So there.
Linda
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