Save The Planet, Lose The Guilt

Watch Those Labels
Green marketing comes in waves. The last big one in the United States hit in 1992, when "recycling" and "biodegradable" first became buzzwords and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued its first green guide, clarifying how terms like "recyclable" could be used. That wave faded as the price of oil fell in the late 1990s. "Now there's a new wave," says James A. Kohm, the director of the enforcement division at the consumer-protection arm of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. "It's really more of a tsunami."

It sure is. Kohn says he knew the tsunami was coming when he saw ads for the first "carbon-neutral Super Bowl," "carbon-neutral NASCAR race" and "NBC's Green Week." New claims are visible in the aisles of any supermarket or hardware store. The flood of promotions prompted the FTC to bump up its scheduled review of environmental-marketing claims to last April, a year earlier than planned. The European Commission recently toughened voluntary guidelines on ecolabeling, and now audits green claims. The U.S. rules are not voluntary, and could lead to prosecutions, says Kohm. "We try to get the worst offenders and make them an example."

There shouldn't be much trouble finding candidates. Scot Case, vice president of TerraChoice, an environmental-watchdog group in Ottawa, Canada, says that while few brands used to tie themselves to "global issues," now it seems "everyone is making these claims," often "using these terms knowing that they haven't been defined." Last year TerraChoice sent researchers into big-box stores in North America to evaluate the green claims of 1,018 consumer products, and found that 1,017 were illegitimate, including beauty products that promised a "totally organic experience" but included "zero evidence that the product contained any organic ingredients," says Case. (TerraChoice won't identify the retailers for fear of libel.) "We saw absolutely ridiculous claims," Case says. "And vague, too. What the heck does 'earth-friendly' mean?"

Most claims were not false so much as misleading. Some garbage bags, for instance, are promoted as "compostable," implying that you can throw them into the compost bin and by spring they'll be fertilizer. Plastic bags, of course, take thousands of years to break down, unless they are sent to an institutional composting facility that stirs waste with huge tractors to create heat and speed decomposition. Most consumers don't do that. They throw the bags away, thinking they will magically dematerialize into dirt on their own.

Many beauty products marketed as "organic" or "natural" actually contain fossil fuels. True, petroleum is the product of decayed plants and animals, but that's not what customers have in mind when they pay a premium for organic. And because petrochemicals are mixed with so many nonorganic chemicals, it's even a stretch to call them "natural." In April Dr. Bronner's, a line of beauty products, filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against 13 personal-care brands, including Avalon, Jason, Kiss My Face and Estée Lauder, for deceptive and false advertising. Among the claims were that Kiss My Face's "Obsessively Organic" cleansers contained olefin sulfonate, a petrochemical, and that Avalon "Organics" contain the petrochemical Amdiopropyl Betaine. The defendants say that the use of processed oil derivatives does not undermine their "all natural" labels, and call for a clearer legal definition of what constitutes "eco-friendly."

Another firm is also trying to lend credibility to the industry by creating a "Greenwashing Index" Web site, where consumers can rate green ad campaigns for accuracy of the claims. The site, established by Austin, Texas-based environmental-marketing firm EnviroMedia, in collaboration with the University of Oregon, aims to help consumers understand authentic and inauthentic green advertising, and since launching in January, some 113 ads from six countries have been posted and reviewed. Among the Web site's most egregious "greenwashers": the energy and automotive industries, with bottled water close behind. Consumer electronics and renewable energy are faring better.

So far it seems that few green consumer products are aptly designated. The only claim that TerraChoice considered legitimate came from a brand of paper towels, which made independently certified claims and specified how much of the total content was recycled.

Lesson: Watchdog agencies should have the power to prosecute false claims; clearer definitions required.