According to this Vancouver Sun Report, the majority of products marketed as green have been attached to corporate greenwashing. TerraChoice – an environmental marketing brand based out of Ottawa launched an investigation of over 5,200 products. The investigation resulted in findings that over 95.6% of the products contained at least one misleading green claim.
The finding also contained dramatic results for children’s toys and baby products in particular, with 100% of children’s toys and 99.2% of baby products containing a misleading claim about their environmental impacts.
Greenwashing is defined as “the act of misleading consumers about the environmental practices of a company, or the environmental benefits of a product or service”. It is a problem becoming increasingly rampant along with the wave of environmental hysteria (warranted and otherwise), with 30.9% of all products carrying a “certification-like” logo, leading consumers to believe the product was approved by a green third-party – a figure up from 23.3% last year.
With this news, it is clearer than ever that finding environmentally friendly products is really quite unclear. Without better regulation of such advertising and promotion, consumers may continue to support non-environmentally friendly products unknowingly, despite their good intentions.
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