Sustainable living has become a source of anxiety for individuals navigating climate collapse while also being a source of profit for corporations. It’s never been more profitable for a company to go green, and by 2030, the global green technology and sustainability market is expected to be worth $417 billion.
The rise of green marketing over the last several decades has shifted environmental demands away from governmental regulation of polluting industries, and puts the responsibility on individuals to solve the problem of global warming. Many brands promote themselves as eco-friendly, nontoxic, plastic-free, zero waste, biodegradable, compostable and recyclable, but it’s often unclear what these terms mean or how to verify a company’s environmental claims. For consumers, it can be difficult to distinguish legitimate facts from illegal greenwashing campaigns that disguise disinformation as environmentalism to market a corporation’s products or improve its public reputation.
Today, the majority of Americans value environmental sustainability when buying products and services, and people have become more concerned about the ecological impact of their shopping habits since the pandemic. However, as the planet continues to warm, it’s clear that buying green won’t save the planet like marketers said it would. The IPCC’s 2023 Climate Change report forecasts a planetary disaster within the next ten years without a swift reduction in global burning of fossil fuels, land use and overall energy consumption. The United States ranks among the top three carbon dioxide emitters globally, and the economic sectors that emit the most greenhouse gasses are the ones that profit from overconsumption.
Increased public awareness about greenwashing has led to decreased consumer trust in green marketing claims and more scrutiny, but the tactics of the worst industrial polluters have become harder to identify. We turned to greenwashing experts and environmental scholars to understand how greenwashing functions and how to avoid buying into its toxic claims.
What are different forms of greenwashing?
Greenwashing thrives in a culture centered on consumerism instead of political action. The term was coined in 1986 by environmentalist Jay Westerveld, but the earliest examples of greenwashing date back to the 1950s during the second wave of American consumer culture, the rise of television advertising, and the proliferation of single-use disposable packaging. In order to make consumption a way of life, people had to be convinced to buy things they did not need.
“Green consumerism thus made shopping synonymous with politics,” writes historian Finis Dunaway, author of “Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images.” “This vision narrowed environmental citizenship to be an expression of consumer choice rather than an effort to challenge corporate structures or renew public life.”
Businesses commonly use tactics like green consumerism to camouflage greenwashing and it can be difficult to tell them apart. A report on greenwashing by environmental think tank Planet Tracker breaks down some of the most used methods of companies to obscure their greenwashing practices.
- Greencrowding hides environmental harm by corporations clustering together in a collective race to the bottom where their environmental goals are set low and stall for as long as possible before taking action. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) claims to help reduce plastic pollution yet their founding members include Big Oil titan Shell, Dow Chemical — which is the single biggest contributor to air pollution in the nation — and leader in deforestation Procter & Gamble. They claim ambitious climate-focused goals but push recycling instead of going to the source of plastic waste: its production.
- Greenlighting is a communications tactic that highlights a relatively small program or product to distract attention away from activities or products elsewhere in the company that are damaging. Exxonmobil heavily advertised its “advanced biofuels” made from algae obscuring the fact that the biofuels made up a miniscule part of production. They have since backpedaled the project altogether.
- Greenshifting is when brands shift blame for an environmental shortcoming away from themselves and onto consumers. Bottling and beverage industry leaders, including Coca-Cola and Dixie Cup, discreetly formed their own organization, Keep America Beautiful, to deflect blame away from their waste-producing industry and onto a manufactured enemy, the myth of litter, explains Heather Rogers, author of “Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage” and “Green Gone Wrong: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Eco-Capitalism.” Litter wasn’t an environmental problem that existed until they created it.
- Greenlabeling happens when marketers intentionally mislabel a product or service as environmentally-friendly when it is not. Kohl’s and Walmart were sued for labeling toxic rayon textiles as eco-friendly bamboo.
- Greenrinsing refers to moving environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets before the goals can be achieved. A recent report found that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, both top global plastic polluters, repeatedly shift their benchmarks for reducing virgin plastic consumption.
- Greenscamming or astroturfing is the creation of shell organizations that look like legitimate grassroots, governmental or nonprofit organizations. These fake entities conceal their members who benefit from natural resource extraction such as fracking, mining, drilling or overfishing, or fund climate denier campaigns. A famous example is the National Wetlands Coalition, which comprised over 60 municipal, utility and industrial companies including Exxon and Texaco, for the sole purpose of overturning wetlands protections in the Endangered Species Act.
How to identify greenwashing
Consumer protection laws are in place to protect people from being deceived, and the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides hold businesses accountable for violating environmental marketing standards. However, fines are issued long after companies have reaped profits, and consumers rarely recoup their losses. In 2022, the FTC issued its largest civil penalty ever of $3 million against Walmart for violating consumer protection laws, but the fine is merely a slap on the wrist given that Walmart reported profits over $157 billion just last year.
“Nowadays, it’s rare to see a product marketed as green that doesn’t have recycled content, organic ingredients or some element that could arguably be better than alternatives,” says Leah Thomas, author of “The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet.” “But that does make it extra tricky for the consumer to know exactly how green it is.” Young people seek out brands that align with their values more than generations before them, she explains, “which makes it super important to ensure claims can be vetted by third-party certifications.”
Language matters when identifying greenwashing
One of the easiest ways to scan advertisements for greenwashing is to examine the language used in their messaging. Greenwashing often relies on buzzwords to reel in consumers and vague terms to evade criticism.
- Natural could include anything found in nature and doesn’t mean the ingredients are good for you. Technically cyanide, arsenic and asbestos are natural, but are deadly even in trace amounts.
- Organic typically means that a product has been grown, raised or produced without pesticides or genetic modification according to government standards. However, USDA certification doesn’t guarantee environmental responsibility. A product could be certified organic and still contribute to deforestation or industrial-scale monoculture farming.
- Eco-friendly has to do with taking ecological precautions to safeguard the environment, but it’s a vague term that carries no weight.
- Green is an undefined vague word that conveys an action or quality tied to environmentalism or eco-consumerism.
- Sustainable technically means something that is maintained at a renewable rate so its source is not depleted, but its ubiquity in green marketing has rendered the word all but meaningless.
- Biodegradable is the quality of something that partially or completely biodegrades within a human lifetime, but the percentage of biodegradability and how it is measured varies widely.
For a deeper dive into labels, Greener Choices, an initiative by Consumer Reports, put forth an eco label report card that explains frequently used green claims and rates them on a scale of how meaningful the label is, as well as its verification, consistency, public availability, potential conflict of interest and whether it was developed with input from the public and industry.
Look beyond branding to spot greenwashing
Ads are designed to attract buy-in, not to disclose truth, so keep an eye out for these key characteristics that point to whether or not a business is engaging in greenwashing. Reflect on the overarching message of the campaign, what it’s focusing on and what imagery supports its claims.
- Hidden trade-offs are the promotion of responsible behavior in one area, like using less water, while obscuring harmful behavior elsewhere, like mining nonrenewable materials or sourcing virgin plastic.
- Lesser of two evils is a common greenwashing trope that highlights the benefits of a product, like being made from cotton instead of synthetics, but obscures negative elements like spraying cotton fields with pesticides that poison workers and ecosystems.
- Misleading labels neglect to provide all of the information about a product or service, like labeling something as compostable, without distinguishing between backyard composting or industrial composting sites.
- Vague marketing cannot substantiate its claims with any proof, so it employs broad generalized language that is hard for consumers to define.
- Green imagery pairs environmental visuals with a company, like images of green plants, solar panels, recycling symbols, or endangered animals like polar bears on a product. An example of this is in the 1980s, the plastics industry altered the public domain triangular recycling symbol to include numbers representing grades of plastic, leaving it up to consumers to find out if it’s recyclable.
- Carbon neutral, carbon offset, net-zero or zero emissions programs are a red flag for greenwashing due to their lack of oversight, standardization or ability to measure carbon saved. The practice outsources one’s greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else. Microsoft’s forest carbon credits burned up in a wildfire, releasing stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- Carbon footprint is a greenwashing term popularized by British Petroleum to redirect attention from fossil fuel companies onto individuals. BP’s carbon footprint calculator only measures individual contributions to global warming, not industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
- Scorecards or eco-ratings are common greenwashing schemes that mean nothing without strict third-party accountability. H&M was caught misleading customers with scorecards that supposedly rate an item’s sustainability. If a company cites a third-party rating, look it up. It could be a discredited industry tool like the Higg Index, rather than a vetted certification.
How to avoid greenwashing and help the environment
Greenwashing thrives on uninformed and unrestrained consumerism, which in turn feeds capitalism. According to Rogers, “the quality and quantity we consume is a cultural practice, the outcome of our specific cultural conditions. It is not inherently human. It is learned behavior that we can change,” she writes. If we want new results, we must adopt new behaviors.
Instead of a product guide, we have compiled an action guide to help you dodge greenwashing with a strategic shopping checklist to buy better and ultimately buy less, and to help you reimagine the role of environmentalism in daily life without centering consumerism.
Compare certifications and evidence against marketing claims
Any claim that a company makes in advertising, on its website or in a social media campaign has to be backed up with evidence that is easy for consumers to find, not obscured from view. The onus is on the business, not the consumer, to validate each claim with responsible reporting, independent auditing, transparent sourcing and third-party certification.
Certifications are an important part of vetting a business or product, but keep in mind that they are only one piece of the puzzle. Not every certification program is the same.
A recent report on textile certifications, Licence to Greenwash by Changing Markets Foundation, found that the leading certification schemes offer false promises, lack independence, transparency and enforcement of standards, and reveal conflicts of interest. Among the worst rated are the Higg Index and Sustainability Action Coalition.
In the food industry, farmers pay certifiers to obtain organic status, which skews certification toward large companies that can afford the cost, and disincentivizes certifiers to report companies who fail to meet the standards. Likewise, fair trade certifications have come under scrutiny for failing to enforce their own standards, and fair trade benefits do not extend to workers that farmers hire.
Consider certifications to be a launching point, and look for more than just one form of accreditation to assess a company, their services and products. This takes extra time, but slowing down to investigate brand claims helps you swap quantity for quality. By shopping smarter and less often, you will end up with fewer, better-quality items that will last for ages.
- B Corp Certification requires companies to demonstrate high social and environmental performance measured through B Impact Assessment, taking legal action to change corporate structure that ensures accountability to all stakeholders not just shareholders, and measuring outcomes against B Lab’s standards.
- FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is a certification system implemented in partnership with Assurance Services International and ISEAL Code Compliance to ensure the sustainable management of the earth’s forests.
- SCS Recycled Content Certification independently verifies the percentage of a product that is made from recycled content or recycled materials.
- Non-GMO Project is a rigorous verification that requires 100% of ingredients in a product are free from genetic modification, and requires ingredient testing for cross-contamination.
- EWG Verified is a certification by the Environmental Working Group that verifies products are free from ingredients with health hazards, ecotoxicity or contamination concerns. The label requires businesses to disclose all ingredients, including fragrances, and to operate using safe manufacturing practices.
- UL GreenGuard Certification accredits products with lower Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) that reduce air pollution off-gas into the air, contributing to poor indoor air quality.
- Made Safe Certification requires products to pass a screening of transparent manufacturing processes and detailed ingredients that need to be free from over 6,500 banned or restricted hazardous substances.
- EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment) is an environmental certification system by the Global Electronics Council that provides third-party verification of TVs, mobile phones, computers, solar panels, servers and more. The rating criteria addresses product energy conservation, toxic materials, product longevity and end-of-life in order to reduce greenhouse gasses, hazardous waste and solid waste.
- Energy Star Program is a label backed by the EPA to verify the energy efficiency of household appliances, homes, buildings and industrial plants.
- WaterSense is another label by the EPA that verifies water efficiency through independent, third-party certification. Testing requires that products such as toilets, sinks, urinals, shower heads, sprinklers and irrigation controls perform the same as or better than their less efficient counterparts, maintain 20% more water efficiency than similar products and show proof of measurable water savings.
- Rainforest Alliance issues a seal verified by independent, third-party auditors to ensure that products or ingredients support social, economic and environmental sustainability, using UTZ Code of Conduct or Union for Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) standards.
- Oeko-Tex is considered one of the most strict and comprehensive standards in the textile industry to reduce harmful substances and chemicals through a comprehensive certification process for five unique labels, including its own organic cotton certification.
- GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) label requires that textile companies meet a mandatory ecological and social criteria through on-site inspection and certification of all stages in the supply chain, from post-harvest handling, sewing and packaging to labeling, trading and distribution. GOTS issues two grades: its Organic label requires at least 95% organic fibers, and its Made with Organic Materials label requires at least 70% organic fibers.
- Bluesign aims to improve chemical substance management with regard to air and water emissions, consumer safety, occupational health and safety and resource productivity. Companies must submit to on-site testing to verify their compliance with the program’s criteria.
- Textile Exchange certification addresses transparency along the supply chain to verify each step of manufacturing from raw materials to final products. It works to assure accurate claims of organic and/or recycled fiber content, and has a traceability program that tracks certified material across the entire value chain.
Bottom line
One of the main issues with greenwashing is that it centers the blame of global warming on individuals rather than demanding industries take accountability for their pollution, whether that’s greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, toxic chemical use, deforestation or air pollution.
Beyond sustainable shopping, there are ways to get plugged into your own community to address climate-related issues that affect you and your neighbors and to demand industry change. “Getting connected to local grassroots environmental justice groups is a great way to get involved in intersectional environmentalist issues,” suggests Thomas, who recommends joining a local food justice project, community garden, grassroots organization or even an outdoor recreation group. “Environmental justice is when everyone regardless of race or income has access to a safe living environment,” she says.
To avoid the lure of greenwashing and overconsumption, look for the potential in everything around you, from people to products. Nothing is truly disposable. “What if we looked at products and could immediately see the life — human and ecological — that went into making them?” ponders Rogers. “We would leave behind the, ‘Hey you! Buy this! You won’t be happy without it!’ We might achieve new levels of self-determination.”