Report: Greenwashing Alive and Well

An environmental marketing firm wants shoppers to be a little more discerning this
holiday season. They say a practice known as ‘green-washing’ is alive and well. That’s
when companies make false or misleading environmental claims about their products.
Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

An environmental marketing firm wants shoppers to be a little more discerning this
holiday season. They say a practice known as ‘green-washing’ is alive and well. That’s
when companies make false or misleading environmental claims about their products.
Mark Brush has more:

The marketing firm Terra Choice looked at more than a-thousand products making
environmental claims. They said all but one product made false or misleading
statements. They found most companies are not lying about what they sell. But they are
making statements that disguise a product’s total environmental impact.

Scot Case is with Terra Choice. He says one example of green-washing is the little green
dot on some canisters of shaving cream or hair sprays marked ‘no CFCs’:

“And that makes it seems like, ‘Oh, this is an environmentally friendly product.’ Except
CFCs were banned in 1978. So all that green dot is really saying is ‘Hey, we’re obeying
the law.’ Well whoop dee doo dah. That is not helping me buy a more environmentally
friendly product.”


Case says consumers should look at all products making environmental claims with
skepticism.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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