greenwashing

You've probably heard of the deceptive terms white lies and whitewashing, and now you can file away greenwashing in your brain's internal dictionary. Greenwashing is the practice of making a product seem more environmentally friendly than it might actually be.

We all know that buzz words like organic, all-natural, and green are attractive adjectives for companies to use, particularly in this day and age, but since the laws aren't as stringent in the organic beauty industry as they are in the food industry, manufacturers often get away with putting an eco-friendly twist on product descriptions that might not actually deserve it. Often, these descriptions can be misleading, with organic materials being combined with more synthetics than advertised, or products containing little amounts of actual green materials, for instance. Find out more about green beauty safety here.

Greenwashing is the unjustified and misleading use of environmental claims by a company, an industry, a government, a politician or even a non-government organization to create a pro-environmental image. This is often done in order to sell a product or to make a company or organization look better to investors, members, or the general public. For instance, in my post on green sofas, I wrote about the differences between two companies that certify green wood, and how one is legitimately green in its practices, and the other is not. You can read more about the differences between the two companies here. Ideal Bite also has some great tips on avoiding companies that pretend they're greener than they actually are.

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