The concept of greenwashing is being promoted by a lot of companies that claim to work for the betterment of the environment. Through misleading promotions, they eye wash the customers by claiming their products to be environmentally friendly. In reality, these companies are a hoax as their product severely damage the environment. The motive behind greenwashing is to create a demand by showing that the company supports manufacturing environment friendly products.
The greenwashing claims made by corporate are through press releases where they claim to support green projects. They portray to be a part of a social cause by creating a hoax plan for energy or pollution reduction; thereby saving the earth. These promotion activities prove to be beneficial for the company in terms of rising stock price, increasing number of consumers and collaboration with the green organizations.
Greenwashing is a practice of befooling people by claiming about environmental benefits of the company’s product or promoting the company for being environmental-friendly. Well, the fact is, a lot of hoax companies are using greenwashing as a form of marketing tactic.
How greenwashing claims made by the corporate mislead the consumers?
If you check your email inbox, you can find innumerable emails by your banks or renowned brands requesting you to opt for an online statement or online brochure. These corporate giants start a promotional campaign of going paperless. However, the truth is that they want a seamless transition from paper documents to digital copies. In order to convince their consumers, they pretend to be environmentally friendly. Well, the digital communication is much convenient and hassle-free, so they prefer it over paper work.
When some people are taking ecological imbalance, extinction of species, melting of the glacier or global warming seriously, there are other kinds of people who are exploiting these facts to reap the benefit for themselves.
The concept of greenwashing is quite commonly found in the cosmetic producing companies. The branded cosmetic companies promote their products as environment friendly to attract more consumers. You may find these cosmetic companies promoting that their products are made of environmentally friendly materials. But, believe it or not! These are just promotional gimmicks.
A simple way to identify whether or not the company is using greenwashing as a form of marketing tactic is by analyzing their claims. If their claims are too unrealistic, then they are most probably false. Therefore, never go by the promotion made by the brands. Make sure you check the label of the product, whether it claims to be all-natural. Try to acquire more information on the green product language whether it’s organic, non-toxic, and all natural. These are some of the words that you can look for on the label of the product that you plan to buy.
So, research about the company and their products before you believe in their claims of selling eco-friendly products. An authentic eco-friendly company will provide information about their research on the company website. You need to be a smart consumer if you are planning to invest your money on organic products.
These brands generally attract consumers with attractive packages, so never go by the packaging. Make sure you check the label to find out about the ingredients used in the product. You must check the products that have a green certification like Energy star for home appliances, USDA organic seal for cosmetic and consumable goods, and Green seal for the cleansing product. Look for CarbonFree and CarbonNeutral label products. These certifications are given by the third-party organization like Carbonfund.org and Natural Capital Partners. These organizations support the companies which initiate their reduction of carbon emission. A company uses renewable resources to manufacture their products if it has a WindMade label. The company can acquire this label only if it uses 75% of the energy from any renewable source like wind, water and so on.
Therefore, you must not buy a product that is not third-party certified. Well, terms like “eco-safe”, “environmentally friendly” or “natural” are not defined and these terms can be misused to greenwash the consumers.
The earth has given you shelter and food, now it’s your turn to return the favour. Raise your voice for environmental initiatives and take the first step to save the earth. If the consumers are conscious, then the corporate giants will take environmental and social responsibility to protect the environment.