Here at Emerald we know that consumers want to make purchasing decisions which are good for the planet. But we also know that this task isn’t always easy. This blog post is meant to help you understand some basic information about eco labels in order to aid your purchasing process.
General Information
1. There are A LOT of them
You may have noticed that almost every “green” product has some sort of label on it touting how environmentally friendly it is. In fact, according to Terrachoice’s most recent Sins of Greenwashing report, there are currently over 400 eco labels in the North American market. Furthermore, despite the recession green claims have increased by 70% in the last year.
2. They DO NOT all mean much
Although there has been an impressive proliferation of green claims and eco labels over the last year, not all these labels can be trusted. For instance some labels, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), have been created by industry groups to help their members appear green. Further still, some labels can simply be purchased online by just filling out a survey and paying a fee. These labels are particularly popular with small businesses which do not have the budgets to pay for the real labels but still want to appear green.
How to determine if an Eco Label is valuable
3. Does the label have NGO backing?
One of the best ways to tell if a label has meaning is if it has received endorsement from a big name not for profit organization. For example, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has received backing from the Rainforest Alliance and the Environmental Paper Network. These organizations are dedicated to environmental issues and wouldn’t back a label unless it had real meaning.
4. Is the label developed by an organization which is already trusted?
Several large and prestigious organizations have begun to capitalize on their strong brand equity by developing their own labels. An example of this is Good Housekeeping’s Green Seal, which is a spinoff of the company’s traditional Seal of Approval.
5. What does Consumer Report say about it?
A third way to determine if an eco label has value is to check out Consumer Report’s greener choices website. They have done detailed analysis on labels for a variety of different product categories.
To learn more, go to:
http://www.greenerchoices.org/
http://www.terrachoice.com/Home/News
http://forestethics.org/stop-sustainable-forestry-initiative-greenwash
10:22 pm on June 11th, 2011
Terrachoice manages the EcoLogo “green” label that is on thousands of products. Thing is even EcoLogo certified products commit greenwashing sins. Therefore, Terrachoice needs to protect consumers from Terrachoice! How hypocritical of them to point the finger at other companies when they are fraudulent themselves? In the end, what we have learned is to never trust a marketing company that manages a “green” ecolabel. Terrachoice is promoting one of the biggest “greenwashing” marketing campaign and tricking consumers to buy into EcoLogo, a “greenwashing” label that brings millions of dollars to Terrachoice. Shame on Terrachoice! Fraud
2:58 pm on June 13th, 2011
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is the world’s largest single forest certification standard, is based on science, governed by an independent board representing economic, social and environmental interests equally and backed up by independent third-party audit (many of whom audit more than one standard). Read more on what others are saying about SFI at http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/SFI_what others are saying.pdf.
4:22 pm on June 13th, 2011
Please note that the Eco Friendly Products blog does not confirm or deny any comments made on our site. We would like this blog to be as unbiased as possible, thus we welcome criticism. However, to respond to the first comment we would like to point out that the source cited is on the actual SFI website which calls into question the motives of the poster. Furthermore, the Good For Forests website (the email used by the poster) seems to be sponsored by SFI due to the use of the SFI logo on the site. To respond to the second comment, the Terrachoice report was chosen based on the fact that several large and well respected news sites, such as GreenBiz and Environmental Leader, have used it as well.