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- Herausgeber: Icon Books
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Climate change is now a mainstream conversation topic, and yet every week our recycling piles are still overflowing and we're faced with a steady stream of brands trying to persuade us to buy their eco-friendly products in our quest to live sustainably. For too long, corporations have shifted the eco-responsibility onto us, the consumers. It's time to push back and demand change. In Buyer Beware, Ethical Hour founder Sian Conway-Wood provides practical tips on how to stop consuming, advice on how to see through corporations' greenwashing, and steps to hold them accountable. In doing so we can create demand for sustainability in supply chains, and put pressure on decision makers to implement systemic change that puts people and planet above profit.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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For Amelia Rae – who taught me the true power of small but mighty things.
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Contents
Introduction
“Open happiness”
“Start the day the happy way”
“Feel good, look good, and get more out of life”
What do these advertising slogans have in common? They all sell the idea that buying their product will make us happier, but they have something else in common too. They also all belong to some of the world’s biggest brands, who are some of the planet’s worst polluters, responsible for the waves of plastic waste pouring into our oceans and carbon emissions clogging up our atmosphere.
Everywhere you look, companies are trying to sell you the latest product, with advertising that promises it will make you happier, prettier or more popular, and yet the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around one in four people globally have at least one mental health disorder, and psychologists have found that all this consumption is actually making us miserable.1 In the Western world we’re working longer hours than ever before, buying more stuff to try to make us feel good, and getting ourselves into debt to try to keep up with the latest trends. And it’s not just our personal bank balances that are overdrawn. Some of the products we buy are even produced as a result of exploitation, cause harmful pollution in their production and damage our health. Overconsuming is taking its toll on the planet. We’re living in overshoot – the point 2at which we’re using more natural resources each year than nature can regenerate. Which means we’re borrowing from the future, and our ecological bank balance may soon run out.
Most of us know that advertising makes grand promises that the products we purchase usually fail to live up to. Many of us are also aware that too much shopping is bad for the planet. We even want to do something about it. So why do we find it so hard to make sustainable choices? Perhaps we should look to car manufacturer Hyundai’s slogan for the answer – Prepare to want one. We live in a capitalist society driven by the unlimited pursuit of growth. Corporations use near-constant advertising to manipulate us into spending more, leaving it up to us to ‘make the right choice’ about the products we buy – without giving us all the information about how they’re made or what impact they have.
We’re starting to wake up to the realities of climate change, and question what we can do about it. We’ve realised what harm ‘business as usual’ is causing, and we’re ready to demand change, but we’re struggling to implement it. It is the wealthy CEOs and shareholders behind our fossil fuel economy who have the real power to change things – but they have no incentive to make it happen while they live lives of private luxury, built on the back of our harmful consumption habits. Whole industries, from advertising and automotive, to fashion and Big Oil, are profiting from the status quo, as long as we continue to purchase – which is why they’re investing billions in covering up the truth about the climate crisis to keep us spending.
They want us to think there’s nothing we can do about it, which is why they carefully control the narratives around climate change in our shops, on our screens and even in the way our countries are run. But increasingly around the world, people are taking back 3their power, escaping the stronghold of polluting corporations and demanding change. And now it’s your turn.
Chances are, if you’ve picked up this book, you’ve already had that ‘lightbulb moment’ inspiring you to reduce your impact on the planet. For many of us, it starts with something shocking. Upsetting footage of a whale grieving her dead calf killed by plastic pollution, worry over wildfires destroying homes and animal habitats, or heartbreaking images of orangutans trying to fend off the bulldozers tearing down their rainforest homes. Seeing our favourite species pushed to the brink of extinction, noticing litter mounting up on the kerbs in our local neighbourhoods or even looking out the window at ‘freak’ weather events that are becoming our new normal.
For me, it began with a pair of trousers. On holiday in Cambodia in 2015, I’d spent the day with local artisans, learning about the skill and effort that goes into traditional silk weaving, and admiring the beautiful fabrics they were creating. That night, as I got ready for bed, I noticed that the trousers I’d been wearing, purchased cheaply from a high-street retailer in the UK, said ‘Made in Cambodia’ on the label. Having seen the time and skill it took to weave fabric by hand, I began to wonder, like many ethical fashion activists before me, ‘who made my clothes?’ And if I’d only paid £10 for them, how much did the person making them get paid?
When I got home, I fell down an ethical-fashion rabbit hole, learning about the horrors of modern slavery, exploitation and environmental destruction behind the fashion industry and the cheap clothes I had been, until then, enjoying. As a marketer in my day job, I began to see how people like me were using our skills to sell cheap products that people didn’t really need, at a true cost to workers in supply chains and the planet we all share. What started as a mission to clean up my wardrobe eventually turned into a reframe 4of my entire relationship with consumption. Along the way, I blogged about the things I was learning, and began connecting with other like-minded ethical consumers online. As I met small business owners who were doing all that they could to make their products ethically and sustainably, I witnessed how much they were struggling to compete against big brands with huge advertising budgets, and I knew I could help.
A single ‘made in’ label led me on a journey of lifestyle changes, new connections and a complete career change, as I left the corporate world behind in 2017 to work with ethical and sustainable small businesses. I started the #EthicalHour community as a Twitter chat, founded on the idea that if we could all dedicate just one hour a week to learning more about ethics, sustainability and how to buy better, we could begin to make improvements without getting overwhelmed. As the network grew, I began teaching small businesses how to be more sustainable and market themselves ethically, drawing together a whole community of people who believe profit shouldn’t come at the expense of people and planet. Today #EthicalHour connects over 61,000 people worldwide (growing every day!), united in our mission to create a world where business is a force for good.
But back to Ethical Hour’s early days, and the start of my journey into sustainable living. I was proud to consider myself a ‘conscious consumer’. I spent hours researching brands and carefully considering my purchases. Bamboo coffee flask in hand, I switched to a renewable energy provider at home and sent my friends a referral code to encourage them to do the same. When I signed up for a recycled toilet paper subscription, I proudly shared their discount scheme. I promoted the plant-based meal box I signed up to, and got some free meals when my mum joined too. The more I talked about 5them, the more my small swaps spread through my social circles and online audience – a ripple effect of positive actions that made me think, surely, if enough people cared about the planet, and knew these options existed, we wouldn’t be in such a mess?
Since 2017, it has felt like that ripple has become a wave. In the UK, the Blue Planet II documentary brought the reality of plastic pollution into our homes and the tide began to turn overnight. Suddenly everyone seemed to carry reusables. Brands made big pledges about their plastic waste in response to public pressure. Zero-waste shops started popping up on high streets across the country, single-use items like plastic cotton buds were banned and it was slightly easier to find some plastic-free produce in the supermarkets. Since then, in cities around the world, Extinction Rebellion have brought ‘business as usual’ to a halt with their civil disobedience, students have been on climate strike, and governments and corporations have begun to declare a climate emergency. Finally, climate change has become a mainstream topic in conversation, beyond the usual echo chamber of concerned environmentalists.
Yet every week I notice my household waste and recycling is still overflowing, and I’m not alone. Deliveries still arrive in mountains of plastic wrap, and finding good quality alternatives to everything isn’t always easy or convenient. After the initial awareness wore off, lots of people began to lose enthusiasm and slipped back into old, unsustainable habits. And even for those of us who persevered, there’s still so much to think about – from carbon footprints and palm oil, to Fairtrade and ethical labour practices. Trying to ‘make the right choice’ can get really overwhelming, really quickly.
Even though my own journey into eco-friendly living overhauled my life in many ways, I still find it really difficult to be 6sustainable. I know that growing my own veg would be best for the planet, but my five tomato plants didn’t produce a single crop last summer. I know that making my own cleaning products would be cheaper and more eco-friendly than buying them, but I never seem to find the time. I want to buy ethical fashion exclusively, but it doesn’t always come in my size or budget, and I can’t always find what I’m looking for second-hand. Doing extensive research into the companies I buy from is exhausting, and I can’t help but feel frustrated when I see big retailers release ‘conscious collections’ that I know aren’t as green as they seem.
Some eco swaps are easy to adopt, but once we’ve made the first steps it becomes harder. What happens when we can’t find eco options? Once our initial rush of enthusiasm wears off, how do we turn these sustainably minded switches into long-term habits? Why is it so difficult to stop buying unsustainable products, even when we try? And are our actions even making a difference anyway? While I don’t deny that most people do care about the planet, and more and more people are becoming aware that eco-friendly options exist in many different areas of life, I was wrong when I thought that mass adoption of these small swaps alone would be enough to change the world.
Our planet can only produce a finite number of resources, and only withstand a certain amount of heating, in order to stay healthy and continue to provide a hospitable home for human life. But in our endless pursuit of unlimited growth, we’re using up natural resources quicker than nature can replenish them. We’re now living in overshoot. Globally, we need 1.75 planet Earths to support humanity’s current demand on the ecosystem.2 We’re also in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. Global wildlife populations have decreased by 60 per cent in our lifetime.3 Within the next 7ten years, our lives will be unrecognisable if we don’t take drastic action to protect the environment now.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what eco-anxiety is, or how it’s making life hard. If you’ve ever sat outside on a hot day, unable to fully relax in the sun because of a niggling feeling of dread, you know all too well what concern about the changing climate can do to our mental health. But unfortunately, as I’m going to show you in this book, the things you’re probably doing to try to ease your eco-anxiety and have a positive impact on the planet, could in fact be making it worse. (Don’t worry, I’m also going to show you what to do instead!)
The people who caused the problems are the ones now trying to sell us solutions, and the more involved in sustainable living you get, the more you begin to realise that ethical shopping alone won’t solve this mess. Of course, in recent years we have witnessed brands begin to change their behaviour in response to growing consumer demand for sustainable options. But the pace of change is slow, and climate breakdown is happening too fast. Choosing the ‘sustainable’ option isn’t always straightforward, or as effective at creating change as we would like to believe. Despite their ‘conscious collections’ and environmental pledges, corporations continue to pollute the planet to make a profit in pursuit of unlimited growth. Which is why the climate emergency isn’t a problem we can shop our way out of.
This planet is our shared home, and we share a responsibility to leave it in a better state than we inherited it. But there are those among us who are not stepping up and doing their part. I’m not talking about your neighbour who doesn’t put their recycling bin out, or your colleague who still gets their coffee in a disposable cup, because in the face of global heating, their impact, and yours, is a 8drop in the ocean of change we need. I’m talking about the CEOs of multinational corporations with huge carbon footprints, who mass produce the cheap stuff filling up landfills, the politicians making laws and deciding how public money is spent, the oil companies that lobby in favour of the status quo and the billionaires who have made their fortune by exploiting people and planet. They have the resources, power and influence to make big change happen fast, so they’re who we need to convince. And I’m going to show you how.
For too long, corporations have shifted responsibility onto us, the consumers. Using the principle of ‘Buyer Beware’, whereby a buyer is responsible for what they purchase, they have made us responsible for choosing the most ethical and sustainable option, while they continue to profit regardless of which decision we make. They wield their power to influence politicians, lobby secretly against regulation and environmental action, and blame us for the state of the natural world. Now it’s time for us to push back. Because our personal eco-action won’t be enough unless these global power structures shift. But just because we don’t have the power, money or influence of world leaders or CEOs at our fingertips, doesn’t mean we are powerless.
*
This book is for you if eco-anxiety is keeping you up at night. If you’ve already got your reusable coffee cup, but often find yourself wondering whether it really makes a difference. If you have a burning desire to tackle climate change, restore nature and fight injustice – but you haven’t got the budget for high-end ethical fashion, the time, patience or desire to make your own oat milk, or the energy to research every single thing you buy, use and do. It’s for you if, like me, you’re tired of making sustainable sacrifices and spending 9hours adapting your lifestyle when nothing really seems to change, and all that recycling ends up getting burnt abroad anyway. If you’re frustrated that the responsibility to make ‘the right choice’ always falls on your shoulders, and if you’re tired of hearing politicians make empty promises in nods to the environment which ignore the true sense of urgency this crisis needs.
I want to show you how you can really change things. How, by working together, we can make real environmental action unavoidable for corporations. How we can create demand for sustainability in supply chains and simultaneously put pressure on political decision makers to implement legislation and systemic change that puts people and planet above profit. How we can escape manipulative marketing, buy less and be happy.
Inside this book you’ll find practical tips to buy less, by avoiding the manipulative traps that advertisers use to keep us consuming, and you’ll discover how this can actually make you happier, healthier and richer, despite what they want you to believe. You’ll learn how to see through greenwashing, challenge the corporations who are really causing climate change and hold them accountable. And you’ll discover why we all need to become climate citizens, not just consumers, and use our power as a community to build a better, more sustainable future that works for everyone, including the earth’s resources. You might already be taking some of this action, or you might not have the time, energy or resources to do as much as you’d like to, and that’s okay. We all need to become advocates for the type of world we want, but as you’re going to see throughout this book, there are many ways to do it. I encourage you to view this as a menu of options to get you started, find what works for you, and potentially explore actions I don’t talk about here too. Together we’ll honestly explore what stops us from being greener, and why 10individual action feels insignificant in the scale of the problems our world is facing, so you’re well equipped with advice and counterarguments to share with others as you embark on your new role as an ambassador and advocate for eco-action.
*
When I was halfway through writing this book, my daughter was born slightly earlier than planned, and spent a week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. On the windowsill by her incubator was a stack of books, and one night I found myself reading her what is now our favourite bedtime story – The Snail and The Whale. For those unfamiliar, it is a jolly tale of a snail and a whale who set out to explore the world together, revelling in its beauty and how small it makes the tiny snail feel – until one day the whale becomes beached, and it is the small but mighty snail who saves him, by uniting the community and encouraging them to take action. I love the story because it embodies the ethos behind my business, this book and the way I hope to raise my daughter – the unshakeable belief that nobody is too small to make a difference, when we work together.
Countless times in history we’ve seen the powerful changes that occur when ordinary people take action as a community to reshape society. Now it’s our turn. 11
A note before we start …
Throughout this book, you will see ‘global warming’ referred to as ‘global heating’. This is intentional. In 2018, a scientist from the UK Met Office told the UN climate summit that this is a more accurate term in light of the risks we’re facing, and the ways in which the energy balance of the planet is changing at such a rapid rate. As you’ll learn in this book, the language we use is a powerful tool for inspiring action. The term ‘global heating’ is not used here to encourage you to feel more anxious about climate change, but instead to begin establishing a new social norm – one which is focused on taking climate action in recognition of how urgent the situation is. When something becomes the social norm, large-scale change can happen at a rapid pace, and we all have our part to play in making this happen. Changing the narrative is one way I’m playing mine.
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Notes
1.https://www.who.int/news/item/28-09-2001-the-world-health-report-2001-mental-disorders-affect-one-in-four-people; Professor of Psychology Tim Kasser has found that the more people prioritise materialistic goals, the lower they report their personal well-being. And people who ingest more advertising have stronger materialistic values. https://truecostmovie.com/tim-kasser-interview/
2. According to Global Footprint Network: https://www.footprintnetwork.org/2019/06/26/press-release-june-2019-earth-overshoot-day/
3. World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2018
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Greenwashing uncovered
Pick up almost any product in the supermarket, and it’s likely that you’ll see some sort of eco-friendly, environmental or ethical claim on the packaging. But what does it all mean, and can you really believe the claims? Most people, when they first decide to ‘be more green’, start with their shopping habits. Yet even the most eco-minded consumers find all the different labels and buzzwords confusing.
A couple of years ago I found myself discussing ethical fashion with some like-minded friends. They both considered themselves to be responsible consumers, switched on to environmental issues and trying to do their bit by recycling more and making greener lifestyle choices like cycling, ditching plastic bags and eating more plant-based meals. When I asked them where they shopped for clothes, I was therefore surprised to hear them both say they were fans of the ‘conscious collection’ created by one of the high street’s biggest fast-fashion brands. I was even more surprised when they then admitted that, although they buy these clothes, they don’t actually know what the ‘conscious’ label means in the context of their fashion choices.
The problem is that labels like ‘conscious’, ‘sustainable’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘natural’ and to some extent even ‘organic’ don’t come with enough regulation around their usage to ensure that brands 14have the credentials to back up these claims. There are no industry standard definitions in place, leaving these popular terms open to interpretation (and manipulation) by advertisers. In the case of my friends’ favourite ‘conscious collection’, the retailer uses the term ‘conscious’ to refer to the percentage of organic materials and recycled fabrics in the clothes – not the overall sustainability of the company or ethical practices in the supply chain.
In fact, a few months after our conversation, this particular retailer was criticised by the Norwegian Consumer Authority (CA) for misleading marketing of its ‘sustainable’ collection, with the CA’s director stating that the information given about their sustainability practices was insufficient and ‘did not specify the actual environmental benefit’ – warning consumers that they may be being misled by statements in the company’s marketing strategies.
The CA concluded that the brand’s portrayal of their sustainability was in breach of Norwegian marketing laws, and was being used ‘to deceive consumers on the nature of a product, causing them to make an economic decision that they would not otherwise have made’.
CA director Elisabeth Lier Haugseth encouraged companies to be more specific when advertising sustainability, saying: ‘The focus should be on what your company is actually doing to be more sustainable, and refrain from using general terms such as “sustainable”, “environmentally friendly” and “green”.’1
Fashion brands can use all the recycled materials and innovative plant-based fibres they like, but until they stop churning out a new collection every week, selling clothes cheaply, exploiting their workforce and suppliers to keep costs low and margins high, and encouraging us to consume clothes as if they were disposable, they can never truly be sustainable. Yet with so much eco-friendly 15product labelling, it was no wonder my friends were confused. This problem isn’t exclusive to the fashion industry. Confusing labelling is everywhere.
Did you know that the ‘Green Dot’ symbol (the arrow in a circle which usually appears in black and white on labels) doesn’t mean the packaging is recyclable, will be recycled or has been recycled, despite what many people think? It’s actually a trademark used on packaging in some European countries, which signifies that the producer has made a financial contribution towards the recovery and recycling of packaging in Europe. Companies pay a fee to be able to use the logo, and the fees are cheaper if they make the packaging recyclable, but it’s not a requirement.
With so many different buzzwords for sustainability, confusing symbols and inconsistencies in marketing messaging, it’s no surprise that we struggle to know what’s eco-friendly, even when we try to shop consciously. Unfortunately, in many cases, this confusion is no accident.
Many companies actually invest more money into looking ethical and sustainable in their marketing efforts than in changing their materials, supply chains and business practices – a rising trend known as ‘greenwashing’.
While some greenwashing is unintentional, resulting from a lack of sustainability knowledge or complete supply chain consideration, 16the majority of cases are, sadly, completely intentional – designed to cash in on growing consumer demand for sustainability in a way that maximises shareholder profit. This dangerous trend not only misleads well-meaning consumers, it also diverts valuable attention from true sustainability initiatives and creates a corporate culture with a dangerous lack of accountability when it comes to environmental action.
The seven sins of greenwashing
In 2007, TerraChoice, an environmental marketing firm later acquired by UL, developed The Seven Sins of Greenwashing in an attempt to help consumers identify products making misleading environmental claims.
In a 2008–9 study, they found that more than 98 per cent of ‘green’ products in stores across the US, Canada, Australia and the UK were guilty of at least one of these sins:
1. The hidden trade-off
Labelling a product as environmentally friendly based on a narrow set of emphasised attributes, when other attributes not addressed might have a bigger impact on the eco-friendliness of the product as a whole
Charity T-shirts often inadvertently undermine the environmental causes they set out to support. Many ‘save the bees’ slogan T-shirts are not made from organic cotton, which means that the cotton used has been grown with pesticides and fertilisers – harmful chemicals that are killing the bees and pollinators which the T-shirts set out to raise funds for in the first place.
Similarly, many ‘save the ocean’ T-shirts are made from synthetic materials which shed micro-plastics when they’re washed. 17These tiny plastic particles find their way into our waterways, ending up in the ocean where they cause plastic pollution and harm to marine life.2
While greenwashing focuses on environmental and sustainability claims, many brands have also been accused of ‘purpose washing’, as rising interest in social justice has led conscious consumers to consider the ethical credentials of the products they purchase too.
A purpose washing scandal hit the charity sector when girl band the Spice Girls teamed up with Comic Relief in 2019, to release a charity T-shirt bearing the message ‘#IWannaBeASpiceGirl’, as part of the charity’s gender justice campaign. Money raised from sales of the T-shirts was donated to Comic Relief’s fund to help ‘champion equality for women’, with the charity receiving £11.60 from the retail price of £19.40 per T-shirt. However, it was later revealed that the T-shirts were being made by workers in Bangladesh who were earning significantly less than a living wage. Reports suggested that women were paid the equivalent of 35p an hour and facing verbal abuse and harassment inside the factory producing the ‘feminist’ T-shirts.3
2. No proof
Environmental claims are not backed up by accessible supporting information, factual evidence or third-party certification
Fast-food chain Burger King came under fire in 2020 for greenwashed claims about ‘reduced methane beef’. They ran a video commercial announcing that going forward they would be using meat from cows that they claimed released 33 per cent less methane – achieved by introducing lemongrass into their diet to improve digestion.
Beef farming is extremely greenhouse-gas intensive. It’s 18estimated that 3.5 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 have been methane from cows and sheep – and if cows and sheep had their own country, it would be the fifth largest greenhouse-gas emitter in the world! Burger King claimed that their new lemongrass feed leads to a 33 per cent methane reduction, but they released a summary of their research and the commercial before the results had been peer reviewed, meaning that they had no proof that the results were scientifically valid.4 There’s no reason to believe that the science is false, but it’s bad practice to publicly broadcast results, and use them in advertising to highlight environmental credentials, without external verification.
Digging into the write-up, it is revealed that the lemongrass diet is only given to cows during the last three to four months of their life. Beef cows typically live around eighteen months before they are slaughtered, which would suggest that they are only fed the methane-reducing lemongrass diet for less than a quarter of their life.
Methane emissions aren’t, however, the only environmental concern when it comes to animal agriculture. Cattle farming is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, and when trees are cut down stored carbon is released and the rainforest’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is lowered. Even if the greenhouse gas savings from the lemongrass beef were 33 per cent, the environmental impact of a beef burger would still be six times higher than its plant-based alternative!
3. Vagueness
Using terms that are too broad or poorly defined, so that the meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer19
The term ‘natural’ is a prime example of this – arsenic and mercury are naturally occurring, and highly poisonous! ‘Natural’ skincare products often draw a higher price point and attract eco-conscious consumers, but you wouldn’t want to see these on the ingredients list!
In 2016 UK supermarket Tesco were accused of trying to mislead customers by using British-sounding farm names on their ‘value range’ fresh food products. It was revealed that many of the farms were fake, and those that did exist were not supplying the retailer. The campaign group Feedback called the supermarket out for ‘deliberately encouraging consumers to believe that the meat is sourced from small-scale producers’.5
Despite their deliberate choice of British-sounding farm names – designed to evoke images of idyllic, small-scale farms in the British countryside (and drawing on consumers’ assumptions about what that means for the quality of the produce), the supermarket’s website acknowledged that these ranges don’t necessarily come from the UK. But this relies on the time-poor consumer to do their research; to look beyond the label and uncover the truth. Even if we did have time to do this for every product we buy, if we trust the brand we’re buying from, we’re unlikely to question it anyway. Which is what Tesco were relying on when they used the power of vague branding instead of robust sourcing to boost sales of their value range.
4. Worshipping false labels
Implying that a product has third-party endorsement or certification to make consumers believe that it went through a legitimate screening process, when no such endorsement exists
One prolific example of this is companies using a rabbit symbol on their packaging to show that they are ‘against animal testing’. 20
Animal testing policies are often filled with loopholes. No brand wants to admit that their products or ingredients have harmed animals, and thanks to a lack of regulation in this area, they don’t have to. The burden of proof currently falls to brands that truly are cruelty-free, and there are limited ways to prove it because the term ‘cruelty-free’ is not regulated or monitored.
Brands may say they are cruelty-free, but actually outsource animal testing in their supply chain. This excuse is commonly used by companies importing and selling their products in mainland China, where animal testing was, until recently, required by law. (The laws in China did change in 2021, lifting the requirement for some imported cosmetics, if they have the proper certificates and documentation required. This means that brands will have to jump through hoops to avoid animal testing and might still test as an easier route to market.) Many cosmetics companies will use wording to state that their products aren’t tested on animals, but cover up the fact that the ingredients in the products were. There is also an issue around raw material suppliers using animal tests, which companies don’t have to disclose.
Unfortunately, the Advertising Standards Agency in the UK considers ‘cruelty-free’ to be evaluated at a product level, rather than a brand level. The responsibility to research a brand’s credentials and track record remains with the consumer as they evaluate their purchasing decision.
Products will often come with a bunny icon on the packaging to symbolise their stance against animal testing, but they can’t always be trusted. Unless they are an official trademark from an established, reputable, third-party organisation (like the official Leaping Bunny accreditation), makeshift bunny logos and icons are meaningless, and simply designed to mislead time-poor consumers. 21
In order for a company or product to be certified as cruelty-free, they must meet a set of independently verified criteria and demonstrate proof to a third party. This often also involves paying a licensing fee to carry the official cruelty-free logo from that organisation (which can be a barrier for small brands, but they still shouldn’t use their own unofficial versions).
Always look for labels and logos which are certified by third-party organisations. For cruelty-free products, these include:
The Leaping Bunny
Cruelty Free International also have an online database of beauty brands that are Leaping Bunny approved. You can search this at: https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/LeapingBunny
PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies logos
Worshipping false labels is not a problem reserved only for the cosmetics industry.
One of the most well-known labels in conscious consumerism is the Fairtrade mark. A globally recognised symbol, it demonstrates a product’s commitment to ethical trading with high social, labour 22and environmental standards, with third-party verification that consumers can trust. Yet some retailers are choosing to use their own schemes, with no official accreditation or logo, instead.
Disappointingly, in 2017, Sainsbury’s supermarket, the world’s largest retailer of Fairtrade products, announced plans to drop the official Fairtrade mark from their own-brand teas and replace it with an in-house certification scheme, using the phrase ‘fairly traded’ instead.6 A year earlier, the UK’s best-known chocolate brand, Cadbury, ended its affiliation with Fairtrade, as parent company Mondelez moved to bring all Cadbury lines under its in-house environmental and labour policy scheme, Coca Life.
In-house schemes potentially provide more flexibility, as well as cost savings, allowing brands to meet commitments across a range of social and environmental priorities. But without third-party audit and verifications, brands are left to mark their own homework, and there’s no guarantee that they’re living up to the commitments they’ve made. The responsibility falls to the consumer to research each individual scheme and the standards they claim to uphold – without one easily recognisable, trusted brand to look out for.
5. Irrelevance
Making an environmental claim that may be true, but is unimportant or unhelpful and may be intentionally misleading
Baby bottles sold in the USA might claim to be free from BPA – a chemical which scientists fear may cause breast cancer, heart disease, obesity and other conditions. However, this would be irrelevant because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have banned the use of BPA in these products in America. Therefore, by default all baby bottles in the USA are BPA free, so trying to 23highlight this as a selling point could be seen as misleading. But irrelevance isn’t always this obvious and easy to spot.
In 2018, following a shocking viral video of a sea turtle having a plastic straw painfully extracted from its nose, as part of a growing wave of public awareness of plastic pollution, calls to ban single-use plastic straws were getting louder, and brands were keen to show their support.
Starbucks announced that they would eliminate single-use plastic straws from their stores worldwide by 2020, making alternative-material straws available for those who need them, but replacing the plastic straws with new, sippable strawless lids. They estimated that the move would eliminate more than 1 billion straws a year. But they were quickly criticised, and their claims became irrelevant, when it was revealed that the strawless lids (which were still single-use) would require more plastic than the current lids and plastic straws combined.
Starbucks defended the decision by stating that the strawless lid would be more commonly accepted in recycling schemes, and that straws are often too small and lightweight to be captured by recycling equipment. However, environmental campaigners were quick to point out that only 9 per cent of the world’s plastic is recycled, and yet again this leaves responsibility with the consumer to ‘do the right thing’ when disposing of the product, even when the infrastructure to do so may not be easily accessible or convenient.
They weren’t the only brand to come under fire for their greenwashed approach to the single-use plastic problem. McDonald’s replaced plastic straws with paper alternatives, but these couldn’t be recycled at all, due to lack of infrastructure in the UK.
The two companies later announced plans to work together on a global recyclable and/or compostable cup solution, but the move 24was met with scepticism as Starbucks had previously pledged a decade earlier to make 100 per cent of its cups reusable or recyclable by 2015, which still hasn’t happened.7
6. Lesser of two evils
Claiming to be more environmentally friendly than other products in the same category, when the category as a whole is known to be environmentally unfriendly
‘Organic’ cigarettes may sound greener, but they’re still toxic!
In 2008, budget airline EasyJet ran an advert in the UK national press claiming that its plane emitted 22 per cent less carbon dioxide than other planes on the same route. But the advert didn’t make it clear that the figure related to emissions per passenger, and the airline was able to reduce emissions per passenger simply because the plane could carry more people than traditional airlines. The brand was reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Agency, which said:
We concluded that, because the basis for the claim had not been fully explained, the ad misleadingly implied that EasyJet planes were more environmentally efficient than the aircraft used by traditional airlines.8
7. Fibbing
Advertising environmental claims which are simply false
Dubbed the ‘diesel dupe’, the Volkswagen emissions scandal is perhaps the most prolific example of greenwashing lies.
In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in America were cheating emissions tests. Software in the engine could detect when it was being tested, changing performance levels accordingly to improve results.925
VW had undertaken a huge marketing push in the US, high-lighting the cars’ low emissions, but in truth, their engines were emitting up to 40 times more than the permitted levels of nitrogen oxide pollutants. The EPA uncovered 482,000 affected cars in America, but VW admitted that around 11 million cars worldwide were fitted with the ‘defeat device’ responsible for the false results.
Millions of cars worldwide were recalled, and the company set aside $18 billion to cover costs and fines associated with the scandal, which left them reporting their first quarterly loss for fifteen years and facing fines from the EPA.
Looking beyond the labels
From food to fashion, cosmetics to cars, and almost every industry in between, greenwashing and purpose washing are rife, as brands try to capture the growing attention of the ethical and eco market.
In their study, TerraChoice found ‘no proof’ and ‘vagueness’ to be the most commonly committed greenwashing sins. Often these two will be used together to mislead consumers, and it’s not uncommon to find brands and products guilty of more than one of these sins.
Of course, there are other, less obvious types of greenwashing too. Many advertisers will use images of leaves, animals and nature, or minimalist packaging design to imply a more ‘natural’ edge to the brand. Others will be less subtle and will literally make their packaging green in colour.
Some may not intend to greenwash, but will fail to consider the impact of their whole supply chain, or simply lack the knowledge to embed sustainability properly. Others know exactly what they’re doing. In 2000, oil company British Petroleum hired an advertising firm to launch a $200 million rebranding campaign, which saw 26them rename as BP and adopt the slogan ‘Beyond Petroleum’. The logo got a new look with a green, yellow and white sunburst and gas stations were redecorated with ‘green’ imagery.
But the company failed to live up to their new green identity. In March 2006, a BP oil pipeline caused one of Alaska’s biggest ever oil spills, and in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing the largest marine oil spill in history.10
A visual rebrand and carefully constructed marketing strategy isn’t enough to attract eco-minded consumers, or to protect the planet. And you only have to look at the amount of rainbow branding used on products and adverts during Pride celebrations to see how many advertisers are trying to ‘purpose wash’ their way into more conscious markets using social causes now too.
Environmental and social movements are being commodified by marketers, but at what cost? All these labels and claims are confusing for the time-poor consumer, and the pressure is yet again on us to do our research before we buy and ‘make the right choice’ – which means that change isn’t happening at the scale and pace we need.
