What is Greenwashing?

Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) verb:
The act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

1: Sin of the Hidden Trade-off
A claim suggesting that a product is ‘green’ based on a narrow set of attributes without attention to other  important environmental issues. Paper, for example, is not necessarily environmentally preferable just because it comes from a sustainably harvested forest. Other important environmental issues in the paper-making process, such as greenhouse gas emissions, or chlorine use in bleaching may be equally important.

2: Sin of No Proof
An environmental claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or by a reliable third-party
certification. Common examples are facial tissues or toilet tissue products that claim various percentages of post-consumer recycled content without providing evidence.

3: Sin of Vagueness
A claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer. ‘All-natural’ is an example; Arsenic, uranium, mercury, and formaldehyde are all naturally occurring, and poisonous. ‘All natural’ isn’t necessarily ‘green’.

4: Sin of Worshipping False Labels
A product that, through either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement exists; fake labels, in other words.

5: Sin of Irrelevance
An environmental claim that may be truthful but is unimportant or unhelpful for consumers seeking environmentally preferable
products. ‘CFC-free’ is a common example, since it is a frequent claim despite the fact that CFCs are banned by law.

6: Lesser of Two Evils
A claim that may be true within the product category, but that risks distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole. Organic cigarettes could be an example of this sin, as might the fuel-efficient sport-utility vehicle.

7: Sin of Fibbing
Environmental claims that are simply false. The most common examples were products falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified or registered.
Some Notable Findings from the 2009 Report…98% of products committed at least one of the Sins of Greenwashing. Greenwashing is so rampant that a Seventh Sin has emerged.  The Sin of Worshiping False Labels is committed by a product that, through either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement actually exists.

Source:
http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/findings/the-seven-sins/#fibbing


For products without green washing click here

Cosmetic Environmental Responsibility

I am a fan of voting with my dollar and not buying into the hype of mainstream marketing and advertising. Because I value my health and the environment, I am willing to pay a bit extra for certified organic products given the real cost of the alternative is so much more. If buying with your dollar is important and you like to lead a low impact lifestyle then Miessence ticks all the right boxes. Miessence has set the gold standard worldwide for certified organic to food standards in the cosmetic industry, is totally transparent as a company and is incredibly environmentally responsible.

Narelle Chenery

The Miessence story began almost 20 years ago when Narelle Chenery, at home with two young children and pregnant with her third, started to question the ingredients in her personal care products. Her quest to find a truly natural product range failed, so she started her mission to create her own. After numerous mould growing and exploding experiments in her kitchen, Narelle developed a range of products she sold at markets and by mail order. Her products were discovered by a pioneer on the organics industry, Alf Orpin. He challenged her with his help to make her products certified organic. In Feb 2003, Miessence was born as the world’s first extensive range of certified organic personal care products to food standards. Miessence produces products for skin, hair, mouth, body, men and baby as well as perfumes, cosmetics, essential oils and nutritional products.

Alf Orpin

Organic products are well known to be better for the environment, safer and more nutritious. However Miessence is more than a company producing and selling certified organic products. Their vision is ‘to be an outstanding enterprise of inspiration, conviction, and integrity that is a force for change towards ethical and ecological business practice’. Miessence takes environmental responsibility very seriously and includes the following initiatives.

Electricity offset 100% by renewable wind energy with GreenPower

With Greenflet, Miessence is carbon negative, meaning its offsets more than its current transportation usage to plant trees. Green fleet has planted 7 million native trees in over 400 locations since 2007 and has a goal to plant 2 million this year.

Miessence is one of few companies to be Gold certified with GreenBizCheck. GreenBizCheck is a global, technology based environmental certification programme for any company with an office. Their programme helps companies implement sustainable practices to save money, conserve energy, water, resources and minimize waste. Their criteria are rigorous and audited annually. You can visit GreenBizCheck at www.greenbizcheck.com

Coming back to the concept or organics, it’s important to clarify what organic means to the cosmetic industry. Organic and natural are terms that are unregulated and as a result they are abused in the form of greenwashing. In the chemical industry, natural refers to anything derived or synthesised from nature and organic will refer to anything containing carbon. Petrochemical based preservatives such as the paraben group, that have been found intact in breast cancer tissue, are sometime referred to as ‘organic preservatives’. Natural really means ‘existing in or formed by nature’. Organic really means an ecological and sustainable farm management system that is synthetic chemical free.

Certified organic is a third party guarantee of an organic claim. Certified organic to food standards means at least 95% organic ingredients excluding water and salt, and the rest is natural and approved ingredients. All seven certifying bodies in Australia have the same regulated food standard for organics.

Unfortunately there is no such standard for the cosmetic industry. Instead each body makes up their own standard and self regulates. The problem is that the standards are not the same and they are not as high as food standards, allowing less than 95% organic ingredients and allowing some synthetic ingredients in varying degrees. Therefore a certified organic logo on cosmetics does not necessarily mean the same thing as on food. For this reason Miessence is certified organic to food standards and not to a made up cosmetic organic standard. 

If you are wondering about the quality of ingredients in your products at home, here are some guidelines to help: Split the ingredient list in to thirds. As a rule of thumb the top third will have 90-95% if the listed ingredients. The middle third will have 5-8% and the bottom third 1-3%. Some products will contain mostly chemicals and a small amount of natural listed at the bottom. Some may have mostly natural ingredients with a few chemicals listed at the bottom, usually a synthetic preservative.



You should also be aware of a method of greenwashing a product which is to say ingredients are ‘derived from’ something in nature, or putting the original natural ingredient in brackets. E.g cocamide DEA (di-ethyl-amine) is DEA added to coconut oil to create a synthetic foaming agent for products like shampoo. The amine in DEA has the potential to form carcinogenic compounds when mixed with other chemicals. These toxic by-products are estimated to be in 10-20% of cosmetic products and they increase once the product is opened.

Another labeling trick is to list first an ‘aqueous infusion of botanical extracts’ which is just water with weak addition of herbs and essentials oils. When listed first with the water, the natural ingredients infused in the water may give the impression the dominant ingredients are natural when in fact the water should be listed first, then chemicals, then the small amount of natural ingredients last. If your labels list the natural ingredients without saying ‘derived from’, list natural ingredients in the top two thirds, they are not making organic claims without  a logo, then they are a step in the right direction and are not greenwashing and misleading consumers.

For more information visit www.onlinesales.miessence.com