If you ate a Hershey’s bar this Halloween, chances are it was made with cacao from a plantation that uses forced and child labour.

He might have made the chocolate in your Halloween treat this year

This might be surprising, since Hershey’s touts its contributions to children’s causes around the world. Hershey’s even mentions ‘commitment… to children’ in its mission statement. It has been proven that identifying suppliers and committing to certified cacao (‘fair-trade’ cacao) is one of the best tools for eliminating forced labour on plantations. However, not only is Hershey’s the biggest chocolate maker that isn’t transparent about its suppliers; Hershey’s doesn’t even have policies to ensure that its cacao isn’t made with ‘forced, trafficked, or child labor’.

Hershey’s isn’t the only example of companies lying or being hypocritical about their sustainability and CSR claims; it’s a practice called ‘green-washing’ that has risen up in the face of renewed calls for better corporate practices. Basically, companies are making false claims in a bid to win market share and consumer sentiment.

Sustainability and CSR is all good and well, but if companies are lying about it and consumer choices are being made on these claims, consumers deserve to know the real dirt and not the green-washed ‘truth’.