simple + green

image credit: thingermejig

Today is Earth Day. More than anytime in our lives, the businesses in our lives are becoming eco-friendly, touting all-natural and selling us Green products.

Which is a little unusual, but ultimately good thing…

When we can tell that their product is actually Green.

Any confusion you feel is not limited to any one area. From household cleaners to clothes to shaving gel, labels and marketing messages can be confusing to consumers.

The organic label is a known commodity. But what about “Earth friendly” or even “Green“?

This is the dilemma posed by a recent article in the SF Chronicle:

As Earth Day 2008 arrives on Tuesday, American consumers face a renewed outpouring of environmental marketing claims - boasts by companies that their products are everything from “100 percent natural” to “recyclable,” “eco-friendly,” “sustainable,” “biodegradable,” or just plain “green.”

Along with these claims has come a new wave of environmental seals and certifications aimed at helping consumers sort the real from the hype.

For those of us who have been environmentally aware for a long time, the trend towards Green can be the realization of a dream. But for many people and businesses, it wasn’t until 2006 when Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” brought global warming and its effects to the fore.

That film and the surrounding buzz is credited with sparking a new wave of environmentalism. And with that comes an opportunities for businesses to sell Green products and services:

Consumer spending on natural foods, vitamins, body care and cleaning products grew by 28 percent to $22 billion between 2004 and 2006, according to Mintel, a market research group based in Chicago.

Companies rushed to publicize the green aspects of their existing wares or to launch new green items. The number of new consumer product launches tracked by Mintel that involved green claims shot up from five in 2002 to 328 in 2007.

But, as one firm has discovered, not all Green claims are true.

TerraChoice… tried to gauge the reliability of all these claims last November with a survey of about a thousand consumer products that made a total of 1,753 environmental statements.

The good news was that very few of the products - less than 1 percent - made outright lies about their environmental benefits.

The bad news was that nearly all the products committed more subtle forms of what TerraChoice called “greenwashing.”

Greenwashing, as I posted awhile back, is the act of making one’s product / service / company appear to be more environmentally-friendly or Green than it really is.

Ultimately, the bottom line for everyone is the most obvious: be educated, understand what you’re buying.

“There should be a big caution to consumers: Don’t base your purchasing decision on some green dot unless you know what that green dot really means,” said Scot Case, vice president of TerraChoice Environmental Marketing.