Policy, Greenwash, & Eco-Labeling

Much of the compelling literature out there talks about why we need to make a change and stresses the devastation that will become of our planet if we don't alter our thoughtless, consumer-driven ways.  Everyone has heard about the terrors of global warming, the melting ice caps, the ozone depletion.  Even so, there are still plenty of non-believers out there.  But for the rest of us, at some point you've heard enough of the horrifying statistics and you just want to know if you can do something about it.

It was for this reason that I was (and am) looking forward to Roseland's take on developing sustainable communities.  This week, the focus was on Making Community Policy.  I think we can all agree that, generally speaking, people want to do the right thing.  Issues arise, however, when people aren't particularly clear about what the "right thing" is or when doing so is particularly inconvenient or expensive.  And in the process of making sustainable choices, this is often the case.  As such, policy can help fill the gaps and create alignment so that sustainable options outweigh the alternatives.  But as with almost everything, there are some holes in the armor and some problems born of policy, especially as they relate to business and a concern with the economic bottom line.

There are lots of buzz words floating around out there, and as the satirical video posted here depicts, many companies are using consumers' lack of knowledge to portray themselves as environmentally conscious.  While policy development has taken steps in the right direction and certainly offers some useful tools to enact change, some corporate responses to those policies have diverged from the original intentions.  According to stopgreenwash.org, greenwash is a term "used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."  And while there is arguably a lot of this going on, it is up to consumers to educate themselves about the actual practices of the companies whose products and services they are buying.  But how can you tell which claims are legit and which are full of it?

Of particular interest to me in this regard was Roseland's discussion of Voluntary Initiatives.  I spent my most recent summer in Michigan interning for an office furniture and technology manufacturing company.  The office furniture industry has taken major strides in sustainability practices, which is most clearly evident in the multitudes of voluntary eco-label certifications that are widely used (BIFMA level, Cradle to Cradle, and FSC Chain of Custody certifications to name just a few).  While the intention behind this long list of labels is to provide a standardized, third-party verification of the sustainable practice claims a company makes, problems still arise in their enforcement and in the messages they send to consumers.  In Label Confusion: The Groucho Effect of Uncertain Standards, Harbaugh, Maxwell, and Roussillon discuss the value (or lack thereof) of voluntary labels and the confusion that they can create for consumers.  The authors talk about the "Groucho effect" which occurs "when standards are uncertain [and] if a product is expected to be low quality, then...consumers infer that the labeling standard is probably weak if such a product can meet it."  Just as Groucho Marx joked "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member," a company whose eco-reputation is bad won't necessarily gain much from the addition of eco-labeling.

  

In another article entitled Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit, Lyon and Maxwell dive deeper into the greenwash phenomenon and discuss how NGO audits of environmental claims can actually backfire and cause companies to become even less transparent.  With all of this uncertainty surrounding policy and environmental claims, there is a lot of room for improvement.  And until full environmental disclosure is a required, common practice, it's still up to us to weed out the good, the bad, and the eco-friendly.